Dec Dare Days 9 and 10 - Uncounted Progress

I have a cold. It's been going around and it finally hit me, on my longest work day, of course. So I lack functioning braincells at the moment. However....

Yesterday I rewrote a couple of scenes in Harsh Climate rather than move forward. I was having trouble with the male lead - who is kind of a "still waters run deep" kid. In a script, it works just letting him be quietly overlooked by the other characters until he starts showing his stuff.

However, in prose, I could not make it work. And I finally figured out that I was acting like the other characters: I was looking at his surface. It just wasn't working for me when he'd take a minor insult or when I'd try to explain why he is not wearing socks. He came off as a loser, and I knew that wasn't right. He's not the underdog nebbish who makes good (a la Woody Allen) he's more Zorro-esque, really. Well, not, perhaps, the greatest swordsman in the world, but he's a perfectly capable young hero who just hasn't been called to action yet.

So I sat, and I thought about what he does and says later, and suddenly, finally, he started to talk to me. He looked me in the eye and said "Listen, if you take offense at things, you miss out on the coolest parts of life."

So on Sunday I rewrote a few scenes in his point of view. They work much better now. And I think Vicki's scenes will play better if we have an inkling of why he puts up with her attitude. (I may, however, switch one of the scenes from his point of view to hers, for that reason. The only one I haven't rewritten....)

Today, I was too sick and weary to really write, so I worked on reformatting some screenplays.

In the meantime, yesterday's free story posting seems to have gone really well. Not many comments, but a LOT of traffic. I may make samples and stories a feature of Sunday. And songs. I have a great Christmas carol I wrote for my cats' website many years ago. ("We three cats of orient do, help our mom wrap presents for you. Paper crinkles oh so beautifully... give us some stuff to chew!")

See you tomorrow, though, with some real progress.