Philosophy Friday

It's been a very good day.
I spent the entire day at the bookstore with my red ink pen and my Alphasmart and the memory of the talk I had with Lisa last night.

We were planning this race- 52 pages in 8 days- but it hasn't been going well for me. I was feeling aggitated, not sleeping, tense and guilty because I'd only managed 12 pages for the whole week, not even close to the 6.5 pages per day I would need to write to reach the goal.

Lisa, God bless her, reminded me soundly that I don't do well under pressure, that my work suffers when I rush and that what makes me stand out as an author _IS_ the fact that I take my time crafting the sentences and paying attention to detail and adding layers of complexity. She reminded me that I shouldn't try to compete with other authors and, more importantly, that I don't have to.

So, with all of that in mind:
GOOD STUFF
The scale still says 161 lbs
I wrote 12 rough draft pages that weren't as rough as I thought
I polished two rough chapters and gave them a shine I'm ver proud of

GOOD ADVICE
In the book I bought today, CREATING CHARACTER EMOTIONS, Ann Hood says, "In a story, the writer must ask more of emotions... gauge the impact of action against our characters' emotional lives... [We need to do] what Flannery O'Connor called 'painting a picture with words'... using fresh language and images to see emotions in a different light."