The Sweet Escape

Wow. I can’t even believe I did but I wrote something new. And it was short. And complete. Who am I??? And what have I done with the woman who writes 400,000 word stories and can’t finish them? Oh, wait. She’s still here.

Over at the fanfiction archive I thought it would be fun to do a challenge called AwesomeAugust, where writers sign up for a day and on that day, post a new, complete story that they want. It would get writers… well… writing and it would produce at least 31 new stories for the archive. We like new stories, and considering how dry the fandom is these days, new stories can breathe new life.

I hadn’t planned on doing one, because I didn’t have an idea. And then… with about 3 slots open, an idea came to me. And then I thought it was dumb and gave up my slot. And then I got some great advice and swallowed my pride at my ‘damn good idea’ cut it back to the beginning and re-wrote it and guh.

Can I say I love my own work? Is that egotistical? Oh well. I think it’s cute. It’s called, “Rescue Me” and borrows a little bit from Pretty Woman, which I know aired last night and that was a complete coincidence. I was trying to find a movie that two people could be watching at 4am and did a Google search and Pretty Woman popped up and I thought, Yes! there’s some great quotable lines in that! I already knew how I could mold some dialog around the lines and draw some parallels. I thought it turned out great.

A snippet? Don’t mind if I do (beware of language, this piece is Rate R):

“See, I liked the Julia Roberts character,” Gabby admitted, crunching on popcorn. “But I liked her friend more.”

“Kit De Luca? Yeah she’s a little spitfire. Every prostitute needs a great best friend.”

“Well, and I’ve had a girl crush on Laura San Giacomo, ever since The Stand.”

“Good flick,” he said, tossing a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “Scary, though.”

“The good outweighs the scary. I love the part where they’re talking about the fairy tale, the Prince Charming, you know? And Vivian asks her who that ever worked out for, and Kit says, Cindafuckin’rella.” She laughed, adding, “I always wanted to be called that.”

“Not Gab-Gabriele?”

Gabby burst into delirious giggles, nearly choking on a kernel of popcorn. “Shut up! I didn’t know if I wanted you to know me as Gabby the fun girl, or Gabrielle, the serious writer. I wanted to make a good impression.”

“Honey, you wasted a good impression on a man who was falling down drunk.”

“Shhhh,”she hissed, tapping him on the chest. “I like this part…”

We‘re going to be spending an obscene about of money…

Exactly how obscene an amount of money were you talking about? Just… profane or really offensive?

“You like that part? Where the guy drags her to a shop and dresses her up so she fits into his LA wet dream and doesn‘t look like a…you know…” His voice trailed off, seemingly on purpose.

“Like a whore?” Gabby volunteered. “Okay, not the deeper meaning part, no. But I like the sarcasm and how it’s so Beverly Hills. To a tee.”

“Got that right.”

“You know… this is kind of ironic.”

“What is?”

“Us. Watching this movie. Okay, you said you didn’t want to be alone, tonight. In the movie, Edward picks up Vivian because he doesn’t want to be alone. And she thinks it’s just gonna be this quickie… thing. And I thought I was just dropping you off, on my way home. And he convinces her to stay.” She twisted around so she could see him, face to face. “And you won’t let me leave your house.”

He was almost smiling. Almost. He blinked, slowly, then asked, “If I agree to that irony, am I saying you‘re a prostitute?”

“No. You’re just agreeing to the irony.”

“Then… I should point out that it’s not really irony. More coincidental. You’re a writer. You should know that.”

She laughed, and then blushed. “Touché. I would have caught it, if I wasn’t tired. But what a coincidence, huh?”

Gabby wasn’t sure what she was doing. Or if he would even respond, but fuck it… she was leaving town anyway–may as well go out with a bang. All it took was a few seconds of concentrated staring, her eyes moving from his eyes to his lips and back to his eyes. He picked up on the hint and moved in, brushing his lips across hers and then opened his mouth.

Soft. Slow. Heady. Damn. He was a good kisser.

Et voila. *shrug* I like it.

This week I am trying hard to move Same Time Next Week forward. All I Wanna Do is at a pinnacle point right now and I need to be strategic about how I take it. I have sort of an avalanche of events that are going to hit my main character… the reader needs to feel her absolute despair. It has to be done right. And I feel like I might lose my grip on Same Time if I don’t give it some attention. I still have some fixing that needs to be done with that story.

Seems like I have a lot to do. Maybe I might finish both of these odysseys this year! I def want to finish Same Time before November. My 09 NaNoWriMo cannot still be hanging around when ’10 NaNo starts.

The weirdest thing has been happening, all week. Well, first of all, I’ve been writing. Which after such a dry spell is a great miracle. My latest entry of AIWD was so difficult to complete! I wrote the chapter three times and still didn’t really accomplish what I wanted with it, but the third rendition was the closest. I am learning to not be afraid to scrap things and start over. It’s never going to be perfect out of the gate.

Since I was having such a hard time with the last chapter of AIWD, I was longing for something new and different to write, to get me out of the funk. Something easy, or something that came to me easier, instead of struggling over every word and trying to make them string together and make perfect sense. And then….

Same Time Next Week… the bane of my existence… my unfinished 2009 NaNoWriMo… the story that was not going to be finished… started talking to me. It started telling me where I could back the story up to and where I could lop off the diseased portion and where I could take the story from the new jumping off point. I’ve been rearranging the last two days and tonight actually added new words. And got to a point tonight that makes me excited to jump in tomorrow. DRAMZ, ya’ll!

Ugh. So excited. And so happy that ideas are flowing, and that I’m not struggling. I just needed to focus on something different, and this story is much looser with language and sexuality so I can uh… let some things flow. LOL. I guess I just need the release and every once in while I need to pull myself out of AIWD and do something else. Since I can’t quite get started on that Criminal Minds fanfic. HA!

But seriously, it’s still rolling around in my brain. *smacks self* Stop it!

My only issue is how to post the new version at the archive because I already have great feedback on what’s there and some of that gets replaced. I’m hoping it will be alright to close the old version and re-upload the same story but a Redux version. So many things are moved around and added that it’d be hard to go in and edit the old chapters. And then the feedback wouldn’t make any sense.

But I think I want to finish it, before I even start to thinking about that…..but it’s nice to think about.

After deciding yesterday that everything I write sucks the big one, I actually added a chapter to All I Wanna Do. AND I really like the chapter! Go figure. :/

I wish I could capture some of this momentum to fix and finish Same Time Next Week. *looks at it* *looks away* *sighs*

Baby steps.

Coming up on AIWD are a few chapters I’ve been thinking about for a long time but I really have no plans as far as how to execute them. I don’t want to put a lot of time and space between updates though. Hopefully tomorrow night I can sit down with my outline and put some ideas together.

Taking the rest of the night off!

More fanfiction updates. WEEEE! This story is coming along, albeit slowly. Ch 43 is up at my archive and also the NFiction archive.  The title of the chapter (You Are the Words, I Am the Tune) will have Neil Diamond replaying through my brain for about a week Can’t you just hear Neil singing?

Song she sang to me
Song she brang to me
Words that rang in me
Rhyme that sprang from me
Warmed the night
And what was right
Became me

You are the sun
I am the moon
You are the words
I am the tune
Play me

Last week, I had some “genius” idea to incorporate a drving game into my next chapter. Mainly because my characters are on a road trip and there’s really no way to make driving interesting. It’s 99% dialog. What do people talk about, on road trips? Stuff. Stupid stuff. And they play car games to pass the time.

If you’ve ever seen the show Whose Line Is It Anyway (American remake of the British version), you’ve seen this game in action. It’s call Song Titles and you basically have to have a conversation ONLY in song titles. It’s HILARIOUS. Both on TV and in my story. I thought it turned out well. And it took up some story real estate. It also provided a point to keep coming back to. Past the actual game, my male main character would shout out song titles where appropriate in later conversations.

This is one of the most amazing things about writing… I’ve never said I’m writing a classic, here. I mean, it’s fan fiction, a glorified celebrity fantasy and so in and of itself not realistic or anything. But it’s my practice, and I really enjoy it. My favorite part of writing is when I am type type typing away and something just… happens. It’s like my fingers know the story and I am just watching it play out.

At some point in my recount of a day in San Antonio, I decided my male MC needed sunglasses. He’s a cheapskate’s cheapskate, though. A bit of a miser in that he doesn’t really spend money unnecessarily. He wants the shades. They’re great shades. Female MC wants him to get them, to treat himself. He won’t do it. She buys them for him and gives them to him, rather casually and unceremoniously- such is the nature of their relationship.  He looks down at them, and…. this comes out of nowhere, from my fingers to the page, asks,

“Guess what song I’m thinking of right now?”

I rolled by eyes and turned on my heel, headed toward the food vendors. “No.”

“Come on,” he whined, following me. “It was your game. Your idea. Guess.”

“I already know, cheese ball.”

“Say it.”

“No.”

“Say it!”

I  turned around, pulled the shades off of his face and hung them back on his shirt. “Sunglasses at Night. And I’m never playing games with you ever again.”

I didn’t plan that. It just happened. I love that, when the story writes itself.

Ahh. Amazing.

I’ve got to get to work on Ch 44. The home stretch. Not the last chapter, but the last roadtrip chapter. It’s been such a fun journey. Then I have to plan “Christmas”…. believe it or not, we’re still climbing to the climax. Gonna be INTERESTING. And I have an emotional, sweet, passionate ending in mind. Can’t wait!

Till then… pen in hand,

I know how to fix Same Time Next Week.

I need to back the story up.  I’ve solved my problem too early and I’ve run out of enough conflict to keep the story running. So, I need to add more ‘story’…. I always get into trouble when I get lazy and try to skip story… and bring both conflicts in the story to a more reasonable conclusion. And I need to bring my main characters back to a certain point, which will be significant to the story.

Amazing. Uhm. I have no idea when I am going to dig into it and fix it. But. Yes.

Chapter 41 is complete and up at the Archive. It was a pretty simple chapter to write, and some things actually surprised me by coming out while I was writing it.  Most importantly, I got something that I can build on for future chapters. Know what that’s called? PLOT! WOOP!

I’m having an issue with another story in that I am horribly stuck but I want to finish the story so badly. I’m unable to go back and figure out what’s not working, though. It’s just…boring and I can’t figure out how to extend it or rewrite it or… SIGH. It’s been sitting for quite some time. It’s actually my 2009 NaNo piece. I’d sure love to call that thing done before NaNo 2010 starts. :|