I think. My college is rather disorganized and I can't seem to find out when the school year starts (meaning I can't and neither can my fellow students. So 16 days-ish).
Yesterday I brought my protagonist out of the hospital (she's healed!). This was a big deal, considering that at the outset, I never knew she would be in the hospital. But it turned out to be a handy plot device. Symbolically, hospitals are important. What happened to her in the hospital was also important in terms of character development.
People use all sorts of approaches to writing. Some outline, some mix and match and copy and paste like a collage or patchwork quilt. I do a bit of both. Ultimately, what I think will happen is I'll write the entire story, then go back chapter by chapter and rewrite each one. I think if I tried to do an excellent job on every sentence I would get bogged down and never make progress, no matter how much time I had.
The scariest part of this approach is how often you go into auto-pilot mode with your writing and snap back into it to realize how much backtracking you'll have to do. I mentioned this before, but want to reiterate seeing how this fear is a direct result of my writing approach.
Anyhow, I have two hours before work and a big task ahead of me.Today I've got to introduce her into the world, a world she used to know and which to me is brand new. When you're ten years old how big is your world?
My world was cursive and sketching mountains and learning I didn't care much for math. At that time I lamented the fact that I didn't live in an English forest and that my only viable skill was knowing how to spell well. This was before I relished my opposition to mathematics. Life became much easier, in some ways, once I had a concrete foe.
(Recall the anecdote of Joker in the Arkham Asylum. Joker was locked up bat shit crazy, pun intended, but as soon as Batman went into retirement Joker became completely placid and serene and just sat watching television all day. Villains and their foes, in a twisted way, need each other and even depend upon the other).
My protagonist as of yet does not have a concrete villain. She has plenty of opportunities for opposition set up before her. I feel that at ten years old, feeling hate for what is unknown and against you is a natural and maybe healthy reaction. When you're ten and you don't understand something hate is a handy self defense mechanism. If you didn't hate it you would turn it inward and end up hating yourself. Maybe hate is a strong word, I don't know. This suddenly feels heavier than I realized and so am going to stop and share. Check this out! (be sure to watch the whole thing! Next post I'll explain why).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzHM8JnJkdM&feature=player_embedded
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