Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Crawling Bats, Flying Turtles

Back to school yesterday. During the weekend we bough school supplies and new shoes, instituted wildly unpopular earlier bedtimes. About 10 p.m. on Sunday the girls ran into the hallway screaming. Bat! Bat! We saw a bat in our rooms!

Hux and I were at first dismissive (it's just a bad dream, go back to bed), but there were so adamant about it, and we did have a bat sighting several weeks back (crawling along the carpet of the dining room no less, a seriously trippy sight to see). So. Hux and the girls dragged their blankets and pillows downstairs into the living room, and slept huddled around the couch til morning.




Started the third rewrite of the New Novel on Monday as well. Getting rid of a major character, big changes to another one. Smoothing out the abrupt shifts in tense and point of view I was so proud of when writing it. Yes, I'm dumbing it down a tad. Yes, I'm hungry to get it published.

The results of my first day of rewrites? Two hours to get through the first 6 pages. Yikes.




New school year, new draft of the novel, and who better to guide us through these new beginnings, these challenging straits than Gamera, friend to all children, protector of boy scouts. In the original Japanese, with English subtitles. Come on, Space Monsters, bring it on! Let's cut and poke!

7 comments:

Gwil W said...

You never know. I just read inthe morning paper that a solar system with 7 planets has been found in Hydrus. This is only 127 light years away!

ps- Thanks for visiting Blind Football 2010.

Sueann said...

Bats huh? I would be sleeping in the living room as well!!!!
Hugs
SueAnn

Fresca said...

"You are strong, Clowncar,
You are strong, Clowncar,
Using spinning jets
You will edit!"

Marz said...

A novel is a brave undertaking. How. Cannot imagine. (Can only communicate in fragments when struck by thought of it.) Good luck. Holy Smokes.

ArtSparker said...

Gamera is differently abled, as are many creative types.

Wanderlust Scarlett said...

Best of luck with the rewrite. That can be harder than writing it the first time!

:D

I can't wait to read it when it's published.


Scarlett & Viaggiatore

Clowncar said...

PiR. That new planetary system is pretty cool, eh? Even cooler: there is supposed to be a press conference sometime today to announce a bunch more just-discovered planets. We are in a golden age of astronomy now - very exciting.

We like bats here in Pueblo. They eat all those pesky mosquitoes. But I will admit seeing that one crawling across the carpet was a little bit creepy.

Fresca:
"Come on, awkward sentences, bring it on! Let's cut and paste! Go, go go!"

The rewrite is more brave than the first go round, Margaret. You're powered by the Thrill of the New on the first draft. But a third draft is all about tearing apart those sentences you were so fond of before and making them work better. Or, worse, discarding them completely. Not for the faint of heart.

Art, very true. Though I wish my "different ability" was spinning jets.

Much harder, Scarlett. And I hope I can sign a copy for you one day.