Weekly Update, etc.

Since last Friday, I cranked out almost seven thousand words. Too bad I did that in four days. Think what I could've done if I had written all seven days. :heavy sigh:

Anyway, the days I actually worked, I made some real progress. In last week's update, I told you about the chunk I had to delete. Well, I made up for that and more. The story is zooming right along and I'm loving the new twists I put in. I'm also stalled by them.

You see, I'm at a point in the story where the next scene is crucial, and there are several ways I could handle it. And every time I think about sitting down to write the damn scene, I get stalled trying to decide which path the story is going to take. One possible path has the MCs arriving just after a secondary character dies. Another path has them arriving just in time to save him (which seems lame and forced even just thinking about it). The third has them saving him from the fix he's in now only to have him croak shortly thereafter by another twist I can throw in.

All that angst over a character who's only a catalyst anyway. This is all Alma's fault. If I hadn't written a scene with the catalyst character's crying mother... If I hadn't named her... Maybe I wouldn't be in this fix.

I dunno. I guess I could write the scene from all three angles and see which one works better. Heh. Fat chance. I'm too lazy to write scenes I know I'm going to throw away. (Write scenes and throw them away later? Fine, but I better not think I'm chucking it until after it's written.)

Anyway, I'm going to kick myself in the sluggish ever-widening ass tonight and make something happen - even if it's wrong. You can't fix words that aren't written. Right?

In other news, I read on an agent's blog that if anyone who sent a query in March or April and hasn't heard back should requery. I did and I haven't, so I resent. Keep your fingers crossed. I'm also still waiting on that full I sent last month, but since the response time to the query was three months, I'm expecting a longer lead time on the full. We'll see what happens.

Also, Darling Daughter is still waiting on the response from that essay contest for college. I looked again, and their site still says all entrants will receive a response by July 26th. Gack. Being the conscientious parent/teacher, I waited a week and emailed the gal in charge - no response yet there either. If I don't hear something by this coming Monday, I'm calling the organization. (No, this is not something I would do for my own writing - because the query process doesn't work that way. But when someone gives an exact date, they really should stick to it. Doncha think?) Darling Daughter is twisted up with anxiety over her essay and no one should have to be left hanging like that. Sounds like time to bust out the Mama Grizzly and go all fur-n-fangs on them.

How are things with you and yours?