Blind

So I've got this eye-ointment (cost me $85) that I have to put into my eye three times a day and that blurs my vision in a major way for the first 30 minutes after I put it in. It's frustrating, messy (this goop oozes steadily over the edges of my eyes and into my eyelashes) and I'm not even sure it's working. That's just an update on that whole mess.

Writing is going okay. I'm about to sit down and continue my manuscript mark-up in a bit. Yesterday I took my first test in Psychology (a joke of a class if ever there was one) and think I did quite well. No class on Thursday, so I'm very happy about that. Might even be able to squeeze in some writing if I can get my other homework done.

I have to balance my checkbook today. I think I might be in the negative numbers and my car needs gas (which is over $2 a gallon here in sunny California) in order to get to work. I guess I'm finally living up to the starving artist image. Whoopee for me, huh? All good motivation for me to finish this damn novel, though.

Still haven't heard from Ellery Queen about the story I sent them. Every once in a while I delude myself into thinking they might buy the story and that'll be the tiny ray of sunlight during these glum days of late. Anything's possible, right?

Chugging Along

While I haven't made too many entries in here, I have been working on the book despite all my previously mentioned problems. Though I had to cut back on the amount of writing time I can spend each day. Still, at least I'm getting work done. The last chunk has been pretty smooth, too. I've finally reached the point in the draft where I decided to change some major aspects of the story, so I don't have to fiddle with that anymore, since everything from here on out should reflect that decision. And some of these scenes are really tight, not needing much revision. Some are even pretty powerful, even if I do say so myself.

I'm on page 358 now, marking up the 'script and making notes in my notebook. Almost there, but then this is only the first stage. Next I'm going to have to incorperate all my notes into a readable draft. After this I plan on going through it one more time, doing a heavy polish and search for little things I've missed, before handing it over to my first reader--Beth. I'm anxious to have someone read it. I still can't tell if the thing is any good. It certainly isn't your typical "serial killer thriller." I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad, though. It might be too atypical. If anything, though, I've learned so much from the writing of this book. The way I go about writing will never be the same.