<Bangs head on desk> Why can’t I get this right!!! <Throws pen across room>
New Steps
Forgive the tantrum. I’m deep in editing. It sucks. I’m struggling. Right now, I’m running through dialogue, both external and internal, in Desert Home making sure it sounds right. You know… like the individual characters and not just me talking to myself… I need to do that after the fact, mostly because I’m a pantser, so my understanding of the characters’ true motivations, feelings, and thoughts changes as I write.
After much exploration, which to an outsider often looks like me staring off into space… or zoning out to YouTube videos <coughs>… I’ve got them firmly in my head now. I know how much Deek suffers. I understand how desperate Sam is to fix it. It get it finally, and it is devastating. I’ve been re-writing certain scenes, adding new ones, cutting some old ones. Re-writing the dialogue. I think I’m getting it slowly, but there are sections that I read, usually the ones that should be the most emotionally charged, where it falls flat as a pancake on the page. I am struggling to find the right words to accurately convey the strong emotions that each of these characters are feeling. It is beyond frustrating that I can’t seem to get it right.
I think explaining big emotion is hard for most people. To get others to understand how you feel… to really get it… sucks. Who here has tried to explain how you are feeling to someone and have them say they get it and then they go on to prove that they, in fact, completely missed the point? It happens to everyone. Most of us are pretty good with articulating what, I call, small emotion. The day-to-day type stuff like mild irritation towards a driver who cut you off or petty jealousy because your significant other laughed at someone else’s joke or frustration because your Microsoft Word keeping trying to correct “mistakes” that aren’t actually mistakes.
But to explain soul searing love, crippling loss, and bone deep fear? Not so much. And the more complex the emotions and the more tangled the motivations, the worse the misunderstanding is. This is exacerbated by the fact that we, as humans, are really good at deluding ourselves and often don’t understand what we are actually feeling when we feel it. This is why people go to therapy.
Que me banging my head on the nearest available surface.
The Breakdown
The Best Men by Sarina Bowen and Lauren Blakely
An audiobook for you all this week. Classic story of opposites colliding. Mark Banks bookish, buttoned up stock broker and Asher St. James fun, flirty former pro-soccer player, current fashion photographer are the best men for Mark’s little sister’s wedding to Asher’s best friend. When they are sent to Florida to make the last-minute preparations, they discover that neither one is as easily summed up as they seem. Laugh out loud hilarious, helped by the beautiful narration of Teddy Hamilton and Jacob Morgan, it is a delightful listen. Beware folks, bring your headphones… this book gets very steamy in the best kind of ways.
Living Life
I am taking off for a vacation Friday mid-day. I am beyond excited. A full week of no 9-to-5 in which I get to visit with my parents, catch up with an old friend, and check out my college-day stomping grounds. Plus, I get about twenty-five hours-worth of solo road trip action to maybe, finally get out the right words for some of this book stuff. I will be taking my digital recorder so I can just talk it out if I need to. FYI, if you aren’t talking to yourself, you should. It is amazing how true and to the point you can get when you start rambling out loud. And forget what they say about answering yourself. In the best sessions, it happens naturally. DO NOT RESIST!!
Until next time, stay safe, be happy, give yourself some room to breathe and read, read, read.
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