this is not by choice, trust me.
My day off!
Yesterday: the gym.
I've noticed an interesting side effect of regular exercise: I wake up a little earlier every day. I'm now up at 7am without any help. I assume it'll just keep moving earlier.
(Last summer, when I was also exercising as regularly, I eventually woke up at 6 without prodding. The upcoming time change should reset me to...8am. Which means that my body gets a few extra hours to play with, early morning wise. Yeesh.)
I mentioned my early waking to Mary and Rod today and Mary said, "You're sleeping more soundly, because of the exercise." And I thought, no, that's not it, because even on nights when I don't get to bed until, say, 2--let's take last night as an example--I still wake up at 7. So it's not a question of how much sleep I need; it's the time of day.
I met Mary for coffee this morning--she suddenly looks pregnant, and a woman who's due in 6 weeks should look pregnant at some point--and we chatted about how things are going. She says she's gotten spacier now, and she thinks it's because of the pregnancy. She can't pass a baby book without thinking, "I should read that..." despite having read all of the books in the house at least 15 times before.
She also has to get her first draft into Disney soon. Whee!
I told her what I'd been up to, writing-wise, and she said I inspired her to play with the rewrite of her Act I more. Well, she's inspired me enough with her dedication--she got up at 6:30am today to get some writing done before we got together--so it's only fair.
Mary and Rod invited me to stay for lunch, but I wasn't hungry, after coffee and cookie, so I went home. To write. I got some writing done, but I was restless and had very low concentration.
Probably because you're tired.
Oh, hey, yeah. Well, I'll lay down for a little while.
Three hours later...
I totally conked out. At some point Darin came in and said something to me, but I haven't the slightest what it was. I finally forced myself to get up at 7, because I had to either fish or cut bait on what I was writing. And I don't want my sleep schedule totally messed up.
I was groggy after the nap, though--I always am. I wrote for a little while, then put in placemarks for the stuff I have yet to tackle and sent off the new Act I pages to the writing group. It's about 25 pages; they should be able to get it done by Sunday, even if they only get it by Friday night.
Basically, in order to get the sleep I need, I just have to go to bed earlier. I know what time I'm getting up.
I sent my new Act I pages to my writing group and to Pooks earlier this week. I'm not meeting with the writing group until Sunday; Pooks got back to me yesterday, filled with questions.
In the course of answering questions, an idea struck me to combine two characters, to make one character serve double-duty. Whereas he's once been a fishmonger, now he was a fishmonger and a tenor with the opera. That kind of thing. Something about the idea felt great; it totally opened new vistas in the story.
Which terrified me, of course, because it also changes things. A lot.
The more I thought about it, the more worried I became--making a character stronger (by giving him more things to do) increases that character's position in the story. And the more I thought about it, the more I wondered: have I just made this his story?
I called Aaron and we talked some about my changes, which he thought sounded good. He didn't think the change made that character the lead; instead, he liked the idea of a stronger subplot, involving this character's new role at the opera.
I realized I don't do subplots. I always have my main story, going full-steam ahead, and I never stop to talk about anything else. So this is a good exercise for me in the time-honored tradition of having subplots.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com