Eek: A Status Report

So an update is due, I think, on Jill-Elizabeth Progress. Here goes:

As I alluded last week, I have been spending pretty much all of my writing time working on cleaning up short stories lately. I’ve been surprised at how much I’m enjoying going back over things I’ve written – and how humbling it is. I haven’t been writing for that long, but already it seems like I’ve learned so much: the difference between story-telling and story-writing, the adverb death knell, keeping the pace and the words even, writing in my own voice even when the characters are completely un-Jill-Elizabeth-like. I’ve been surprised at how many wildly divergent directions I’ve written so far. Very surprised, especially because I must admit there was even one so far (teehee) that stymied me – I couldn’t remember the ending. The ending I wrote. The ending I wrote less than a year ago. (Actually, that one may be less of a “teehee” than a “DOH!” Seriously – who forgets their OWN story?! Sigh.)

This has all been a good thing.

What has been less good is the Novel-In-Progress that continues to sit, stagnating, in the bowels of the laptop. Eek. This is the piece that I thought was the furthest along of everything I’m working on, of course. So logically it’s the one that’s sitting the stillest. Argh. It’s sitting because I hit a wall – the piece that was the closest (I thought) to being finished wasn’t tying itself up into a resolution-y bow the way I wanted it to, so I was leaving it to marinate in my head. (If you’re a blog follower, yes, I’m referring to the dreaded Charlie Situation. If you don’t know what I mean, try searching “Charlie” on my google link above – you’ll learn quick enough.) The problem is, the longer it sits, the more disconnected I seem to feel from it, and the more I think my bestest writing buddy Tracy might be right: Charlie may be angling hard for his own book. And the more I think he might be right in doing so. Double Eek.

It’ll set me back more than a bit to turn Charlie into his own piece, both because he’ll need a lot of cleaning up work AND because he’ll leave a huge gaping hole in the NIP. But if it’s the best thing for the stories, I’ll have to do it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I HATE when the voices in my head don’t listen to me… Especially when they’re right. 😉