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Two Hours, and Then . . .Posted by dhoffman on January 22nd, 2010

Yesterday was one of those days where I run around like my head’s come detached, do the best I can to sort out where I’m supposed to be at any given moment, then brace myself for the resulting confusion.

Usually, days like those are not conducive to writing.

I was determined, though.  When I’ve been able to write, of late, I’ve been really pleased with what I’m getting.  Animals was, at the start of the evening, something around 12,000 words, and though it was work getting there, I’ve been feeling good enough about things that I started to wonder, wow, could this book actually end up being readable?

So, last night.

I got home late, ate late, had a crazy dog and a crazy cat looking to beat me up.

So it goes.

Jessy took Missy into the great room and did her best to entertain the fickle thing with a new catnip toy and one of those plush, accordianing kitty tunnel.  Only problem was, Jack the Dog decided that was HIS kitty tunnel (there’s a ball inside, I guess), so we had to lock him up with me.

This was all something like 9:30 at night, or so.  Late start and all that.

I spent a good two hours working on this one section with Jack the Dog on my lap, sleeping the sleep of the just.  He weighs about twenty-two pounds but when he lets go and conks out, he feels more like fifty or sixty pounds.

Two hours.  Good, but hard.  I suppose, in the moment, writers don’t like when it’s hard, but after the moment, that’s very satisfying, indeed.

On around midnight, I got to a place where (remember, this is the Second Draft) I felt like I’d caught up with the actions from the First Draft.  So, I moved from the left side of the screen to the right and proceeded to read one of the bits of story from the last go that I’d really, really liked and had been really, really, really hoping I was still going to like.

I didn’t like it.  I loved it.

I won’t go into much detail, but it’s basically a section I sweated like hell the first time around.  It’s two of the main characters meeting for the first time, the kind of dialog I usually figure I’m going to screw up — either being too clever to too laid back (out of the fear of being too clever).

What this was, though, was just what I’d wanted.  Just what I’d hoped it would be.  A single conversation flows through a half-dozen scenes, as they move through the city.  Body language works with the dialog.  The sweet bits don’t make me gag and the funny bits are just funny enough without feeling like they’re pushing for it.

I’ll need to go through the section again, making notes and changes — it wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  But what’s there is solid.  Very solid.  And it’s one of maybe three or four sections in the story that needs to be solid, which is nice.  I was ready to rewrite it from scratch, if needed, but I’m quite pleased to find that I may not need to.  May not need to make major changes at all.

So, that was nice, then.  Rough day, good night, and my 12,000 word novel, with the “new” pages in it, is now more like my 23,000 word novel.

And that’s nice, too.

My Wife is BadassPosted by dhoffman on January 8th, 2009

Because I have to put this somewhere, and because it’s too damned funny not to share, Jessy just IMed me this from her office:

The other new woman is just sitting there — I’m going to make her my bitch.

Now, as suggestive as that might seem, what she’s actually referring to is the fact that she recently inherited ~70 projects from a departing employee and this other woman has ZERO projects on her own desk (Jessy’s been there a week longer, but she has some experience in the company and they think she’s God’s gift and all that).

But still, mental images are conjured . . .

Snow!Posted by dhoffman on December 19th, 2008

It’s snowing in New York City right now, big, fat flakes that aren’t even falling to the ground as much as — outside my ninth floor window — swirling around like it’s a blender out there.

And — oh! — as I typed that, I think the snow took it personally and for about ten seconds, it was just hammering down, racing past like there was a prize for first place.

Whups — and now it’s actually moving up, away from the ground.

This is my first December in my little “corner office” (used to be the Supply / Copy room) and the view is magnificent.  I love Winter, love the snow (wow, for about five seconds there, the snow was just holding in place), and for the last few years we’ve gotten, at best, an inch or two.  And it was gone the next morning, if it even lasted that long.

We’ve got a helluva storm coming in today, though, and Jessy and the pets and I now live up in Westchester.  I’m expecting we’ll be snowed in (we went for supplies last night) and I’m rather excited.

Snow!