Writing

Well, my novel threw me a bunch of curve balls in quick succession, and it's left me swinging wildly and going WTF.

From the very beginning the story has been in First Person POV through the eyes of my fourteen-year-old protagonist. That's become unfeasible. I'm having to switch to Third Person in order to fully tell the story. Switching from First to Third Person POV involves more than going through and changing pronouns, which is how I originally tried to do it. It's forcing me to rethink everything.

One of the things I'm having to rethink is where the story starts. I'm starting to want to cut the entire first scene and go from there. I'm still not sure I'm going to do it, but I'm certainly entertaining the idea. I may leave it in this draft and see what my beta readers have to say about it.

Two of my characters would make more sense and serve my purpose better if I merged them into one. This is going to require me to rip out and rewrite roughly seven thousand words.

I've decided not to worry about This Damn Novel until after we get situated in Maine. I'm too stressed out and have too many other things on my mind right now. Every now and then I grab my notebook and scribble, but I haven't opened the actual manuscript for several days.





Moving

We've found an apartment and paid the rent in advance. We called and turned the utilities on the other day. Due to regional peculiarities I'm not allowed to burn candles inside. Any smoke at all turns black and stains the walls and ceiling. I'm going to find the nearest Witch and ask how to get around that problem, pronto!

There's a pet deposit of $100 per cat, which we'll pay when we get there. We've arranged to fly them out. Before they're allowed on the airplane they have to get a health certification, so all three of them are going to the vet on Thursday. I don't know if I have enough alcohol for this!

We still have no effing clue how we're going to get the majority of our belongings from Missouri to Maine. We're taking what we can on the bus and mailing a few things, but the rest of it is problematic. We can't afford a moving truck, and while a U-haul is cheaper we have no one to drive it. I'm suer we'll get our stuff there somehow, I just wish I knew how we were going to manage it!


We've got our bus tickets already. We'll be boarding the Greyhound bus at 4:30 pm Friday and won't reach our destination until sometime Monday. I'm not anticipating a pleasant trip, but I'm still optimistic that it won't turn into a complete nightmare.

When we went to the store on Sunday we picked up some boxes. Now packing has begun in earnest. Things are disarranged and hectic and it's tripping my anxiety/panic disorder. But I'll survive. (I don't know about anyone else, though!)

It looks as though we're going to have to rent a storage unit and have our stuff sent to us a little bit at a time. No, I'm not happy about this! I'll be trying to wrangle another way right up until the last minute!





Family

We went to the mall to see my mother last Tuesday. I generally hate the mall, but that's where the elderly/disabled bus takes her group, so that's where we generally meet her. That's probably the last time I'll get to see her for a very long time. She's not at all happy about the fact that we're moving, but she's trying to be positive about it. She still wants us to move to New Orleans, near my oldest half-brother. Um, no?

Yesterday morning we got an 8:00 am phone call. Now normally, anyone phoning before noon might as well turn in a formal request to have their heads bitten off. But it was Joshua. He wanted to know if we could go to his aunt's graduation at Drury University. At noon. Well, of course I told him we'd be there with bells on! We don't pass up any opportunity to spend time with our son! So I showered, nagged Allen to shave, threw on something half-clean and two-thirds decent, and we went. Joshua sat between us, and at one point rested his head on my shoulder. I rested my cheek on his head and didn't give a damn about the rest of the ceremony.

After the graduation we went to Allen's oldest nephew's, in Marshfield. Joshua had some sort of hand-held game device that made high-pitched noises behind me for about thirty miles. I bit my tongue to keep from offering to skeet shoot the damn thing. I was thrilled when he put it aside and got into a literary discussion with his father. I find it amusing but unsurprising that he loves the same kind of books we do, even though we aren't raising him. He also loves swords (much to his aunt and uncle's chagrin).

The after-graduation get-together went fairly smoothly. Present was:
Paul Sr. (Allen's father)
Marcia (the graduate, Allen's oldest sister, guardian of Joshua)
Danny (Marcia's husband)
"Little" Paul (Marcia's oldest son, from her first marriage)
Tiffany ("Little" Paul's wife)
Tiffany's two sons by a previous marriage, one near Joshua's age and one still in diapers
"Little" Paul's son from a one-night-stand, before he met Tiffany
Roxi (Marcia's daughter, just entering college)
Jack and Brenda (Marcia's friends for many years)
Joshua
Allen and myself
I enjoyed spending time with Joshua and there weren't any major arguments - probably because I flatly forbade Allen to discuss politics!






Neopets/Roleplay

Whew! A lot's gone down since I quit, came back, and had to go through the hassle of thawing the accounts that I self-froze.

Hifreann - The Old Man's look-up is done. He's really enjoying being a Kougra. The only way I'll ever morph him again is if I manage to get my hands on a Draik Transmogrification Potion, and even then I'm not sure.
The Imp - She's got pixels! I was so thrilled to be able to adopt a Darigan Ixi, terrible name or not! Her look-up is finished. A friend made her a cute little adoptable and helped me modify a makeable to serve her as a reference picture. Her page is about 1/3 complete. I'm giving the stock market another try because the brat won't settle for any petpet but a Meepit!
Wyld - Yay, pixels! I was able to adopt a Cybunny. She's got her Carmariller and Leafy Wings. Today I painted her brown. Her look-up is finished. She's got art and a cute little adoptable! (And she's pregnant!)
Darius - His look-up is complete and his page is 1/3 of the way done. He's also got a daughter!
Aerlind - He's not even born yet, but his look-up is done and he has his petpet.
Equinox - Her look-up is done.
Lapis - She's not even conceived yet so I'm not too worried about it!
Current Lab Rat - I'm not labbing at the moment. I won't be able to until next month, when I can move the Imp to the "nursery" account with the rest of the bints.
My Stuff - Hooray for inexpensive obsessions! I've started a lips-themed gallery. I really need to bribe someone to make me a layout for it.

Right now I'm trying to get as much stuff done as I can before Friday. We'll have an internet connection, supposedly. But I won't believe it until we get there and I hook up to it.