A couple of new beginnings today

I had no intention of starting a new year’s diet but I was inspired by an acquaintance and realized while talking with my BFF last night that I desperately need to detox. I feel all icky and blah. And my weight has crept up too, which is what happens when you are busy busy busy and don’t take time to exercise and pay attention to what your putting in your mouth. So today I started detoxing buddy style. 30 days. Nothing drastic, just lots of water, lots of veggies, NO sugar except fruit (god, that was hard!), and a little bit of meat. In a few days, I might throw in some oatmeal, rice and barley. I also dropped my two large cups of coffee and a diet pepsi max (healthful no? no… I know) for three small cups of black tea. Probably should have been green tea, but I’m being kinder and gentler to myself. Black tea is better than coffee with cream and sugar. It was yummy actually. I feel light this evening. Like I’m floating on… Okay, no. I’m not floating, but I feel good. More water this evening.

I also started another draft of INTENDED. I wasn’t going to touch it again after last time. Really. At least not until someone showed an iota of interest in it. But these rewrites were just calling to me, and I thought what better of a way to get ready to work with an agent on HOF than by distancing from it. I remember when I was writing INTENDED, I got really caught up with what my writing partners wanted from the story. Sometimes they would suggest things that sounded great to me, better than my own ideas even, and I would write it, but it felt forced to me. I wasn’t buying it because it wasn’t my idea/process I was following. I read Stephen King’s On Writing this past summer (FINALLY, I know, it’s been out for ages) and one thing that really grabbed me was his process. Write the first draft with blinders on. Just write it. Don’t let anyone mush it up or criticize it until you’re all done and ready to hear it. Then he gathers feedback and redrafts until it works. I plodded through the first 50 pages of HOF my old way. Worrying about what my readers would think. Checking in. (Thus the contest, which I was relieved went well!) But it was hard. I liked the story, but if someone else didn’t, I would freeze up. My characters swear and do bad things – the story kind of NEEDS them to. And hearing that I might be turning off sensitive readers by dropping the f-bomb and including violence was stopping my creativity dead in its tracks. So for the second half of HOF, I did it SK’s OW way, and I’m amazed at the difference in my feelings about the book. So for INTENDED, I want to go back and rewrite it blinders-on. No commentary from the peanut gallery because I’ve had enough of that. I know this story inside and out, I know my characters, and I KNOW where I want them to end up at the end, so that Book 2 starts out in the right place. And yes, I’m keeping my last draft in case it rots! I’m in about 70 pages. I also cut some pages and dated to try to start with chapter three. I can always go back to my previous draft… no worries… Yeah!