A Good Day

Today has been a good day for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I added a touch over 2000 words to the current WIP - excellent! Except I've struck a strange obstacle. I've written, what seems to me, to be the middle third of a chapter first. I know what comes after, but the first bit is eluding me unless I want a chapter that is around half the size of all the others.

I know it comes down to just write the story, don't pad, and all that, but this is the major climax - and it all seems to be happening too fast! I've slowly increased the pace until the point where our hero has had the crap beaten out of him and he's just about to find himself in the firing line between the good guys and the arch nemesis, and then has to use his own cunning to defeat the bad guy, save himself, and the day, but I've arrived too quick! I've gotten caught up in the action and rattled it off. (please, no male jokes this time - I'm feeling sensitive and vulnerable).

So before I get him out of the pickle, I've let things cool down. I'll go back to it after a nights sleep and see where I can heighten the tension, make the beating a little more vivid, pack in the punches - so to speak.

Another reason it's been a good day is because Jack of all Trades by the wonderful K.C. Shaw arrived in my mailbox! The only downer to this is the pile-up of books which sit in front of it before I can read it. My 10 year old daughter is also eyeing it off (It would be okay for her to read, wouldn't it, KC? Hanging around with dark fiction writers makes me ask first...)

But the last writing-related reason it's been a good day is because the list of books standing between me and everything else I want to read has been reduced by one! I finished 'This Is Not A Game' by Walter Jon Williams. This was a good book, but I'm somewhat biased because I'm a gamer from way back - not a video game player - a D&D player. I was rolling dice and talking to myself long before there was an AD&D. It is what really got my creative juices flowing in the first place and what I've tapped into to get back into characters heads ever since - but I digress...

This book has characters who are gamers, and the protagonist is also a writer who eventually switches from writing fiction to reality-infused-with-online games - these things are huge and have multi-million dollar budgets. But part of the appeal is because Williams also feeds out some mechanics on how to write a fictional story in the action/thriller genre. It's all pretty cool and that's just the first Act of the book (yep, it's even written in three distinct acts like all good little writers are taught). From there, the D&D aspects move more to the background and the obvious writing lessons disappear all together, but the story really takes off (which is more writing lessons in itself).

Okay - wait for more to be posted, like an actual review, on HorrorScope, tomorrow, or maybe Saturday if I don't find enough time tomorrow.

And totally not related to writing, but very cool anyway, I solved two major headaches at work today that have been hanging around my neck like a millstone for the last few weeks. The annoying bit is that I gave the guys the solutions and work arounds sometime back but nobody believed me until they implemented the suggested fixes today! There's some old saying about soaring with turkeys, and something about eagles - can't remember, but I think you know what I mean and it definitely applies to the Thanks Giving guest's of honour that I work with!

Only one major headache left to solve and then I can start making my own migraines by rolling out the first of two major projects I need to get done before Christmas this year :c(

2010 will definitely see more time for writing if I get everything right, so it'll be worthwhile - at least that's what I keep telling myself ;c) (there, I tied the last good bits into having something to with writing - kind of).

Time to catch some Pokemon - oh, is that the time...maybe just time to get some sleep instead.

Here's hoping you had/have a great Thursday as well!