Or just pissed off that I put a bad song in your head?
Anyway… Watching that orange bar is a real sleeper, huh? It is moving, though! She is plugging away, despite the slump that is driving her mad.
She’s got 4,711 words to go … and a week to get them from gray matter to screen. I probably should rephrase that. It’s not much of a stretch to see her bashing her head into her monitor. 🙄
Keep those digits crossed, you guys!
Drum roll please…
The orange meter over yonder gets a bump!
And, Nora Butler gets to see the light of day. You can find her short story, “Cookery,” in the LAC Bookstore.
No, your eyes are not deceiving you. That orange word-counter bar thingy over there has not moved at all today. Commas aren’t counted so it could have been another of her Wilde “one of those days,” but I happen to know that’s not the case.
I am happy to report that she got Nora Butler off her desk. Um, now that I think about it, maybe having people on her desk is why she can’t write. Okay, bad joke. Let me rephrase.
ahem
She completed Nora Butler’s short story, entitled “Cookery.” She lets stories sit for a spell to age or something before she’ll give them the heave-ho, but it is done. I’m thinking by week’s end.
I’m also thinking the D Double D dare we issued had a lot to do with her finishing the story. If it’s off her desk, what else does she have to fret over now but LAC 13? Huh? We figure it’s a tactical maneuver on her part. She has quietly cleared the battlefield. She’ll lie low, act like we didn’t hook her, and then when we least expect it, she’ll come out typing. Ya think?
Oh, and a little trivia from Professor Bleeker… Galumph is a Lewis Carroll portmanteau word from Through the Looking Glass. It’s a super-sized combo of gallop and triumph. And, yes, just to be clear: I think the author actually did gallop triumphantly when she finished Nora’s story. I know we did. You feel free to galumph, too. Go ahead. We promise not to laugh … at least not loudly.
Shh…
I snuck out.
Okay, truth be told, Ginny shoved me out here. I’m sure you can imagine what that was like.
Anyway, Ginny has an idea to get the author out of her slump. A challenge. A spitball gauntlet. Dare I say, a dare?
See, the author is obsessed with her word counts, which is half the reason she’s miserable: she’s been falling short. She’s got this weird spreadsheet thing that I’m sure only the Anal Retentive One could appreciate. Individual book totals, series totals, etc. divided by years. That big cumulative total passed 860,000 today, and the author got a fleeting thrill from it as she slogs to a million.
And that little thrill was what got Ginny thinking…
The official LAC series (books 1-13) total is 491,762. Ginny said that’s awfully, awfully close to half a million words. Kris called it striking distance. I called it spitting distance. My favorite project manager called it approaching a milestone. The schoolteacher called it 8,238 words to go. Maggie called it cool. Janice called it flippin’ cool, even though she was “excluded” from the first book. Alison wanted to know what having half a million words actually meant. Holly and Laura … well … the artist and the detective took it as an excuse to slink off and kiss that many times—no surprise there.
Do you see where Ginny’s going with this? Even I do so I suspect it’s a piece of cake for you. The slumping one needs a kick in the ass. She needs to stop fretting over the Wilde commas and remember what’s important. Write, writer! Right?
So, at Ginny’s behest, I am taking my life in my hands…
Hey, Roz, we D Double D dare you to hit 500,000 LAC words by Monday the 26th!
Okay, now I’m running the hell out of here. Hey, but keep an eye on that meter thing in the left menu over there. I promise to keep updating it.
Well, hello, light of day!
Thank you, thank you, thank you to the one who crabbed at the author about my silence as of late! I get to come out and play! High-five!
The bad news…
The author is in a slump. It is not pretty. She’s miserable. She makes everyone else miserable. Oscar Wilde said about his own writing: I spent the morning putting in a comma and the afternoon taking it out. Yep, that about sums up our author, except that the comma insertion/extraction is preceded by many swear words and major deliberation about where she is going to write. Sometimes it’s her corner cubby. Sometimes it’s the desk. Sometimes it’s the back step. But wherever she ends up, there’s that damn comma. She ordered a drafting table, and she’s strangely convinced that this is what will get her back in her groove. Jesus, I hope it’s coated with comma-retardant.
Kris says we should hush for a bit, give her a break, cut her some slack. Laura says we should haul her ass into a clinic. She figures that if they run a brain scan, there will be LAC 13 in its entirety. It is all in there. Even the author knows it’s all in there. Do you guys read brain scans?
The good news…
She has been writing most days. It’s just not her usual strides. Baby steps, but steps nonetheless. She’s almost done with Nora Butler and her short story. She hit the 10,000 mark on LAC 13. She’s meditating, eating brain food, exercising, journaling, groveling, etc. I’ve been reading over her shoulder lately as she’s pored through a bazillion author self-help books. It’s normal: they all say. But she’s never been too quick to simply embrace normal. However, I figure that if they don’t cart her away, she’ll be fine—we’ll be fine—and LAC 13 will be completed.
Still, everybody cross your fingers!
Okay, people, the author has been majorly slacking off as of late. We need to crack the whip! Since posting a snippet of her rough draft got her moving, let’s see what happens if I post Chapter 2.
And… Since it has been frickin’ forever since you read Chapter 1, it may be helpful to read it again before this new chapter. You can find the whole of it here.
For nearly half an hour, we followed that blue van away from the city and into the openness of the country. We spoke very little; we were biding our time, wishing it to go faster. We continued to exchange glances that sought reassurance. But, it wasn’t the classic: Are we there yet? It was the unfamiliar: Is she okay? Even the occasional faces in the van’s back window wore the same fretful expression.
Was she okay? Despite being right next to her, I had no clue, and she was hardly one to make an announcement if she wasn’t—which was why we were in this situation to begin with. She kept things to herself, and when she wouldn’t even let Holly in, whatever it was, wherever she resided, was not good.
Hurry up, van! Hurry up, car!
As I said I would, I swiped the whole first chapter from Sutures, LAC 13.
Very bravely and with great determination, Maggie rapped on the door of the Crawford-McCallister homestead. “Nobody lose your nerve,” she ordered.
I took a deep breath and watched Kris and Janice do the same.
Momentarily, the door opened and a seemingly confused Holly appeared.
Maggie point-blankly and very loudly said, “We’re here for Laura.”
“Good morning to you, too.” She narrowed her eyes at us.
Unswayed by Holly’s demeanor, Maggie explained, “Section 37a of the Lesbian Adventure Club bylaws reads, ‘Any couple forfeiting their weekend in the established rotation also forfeits all their rights. They are, in essence, at the mercy of all other members.'”
Holly gnawed on that for several seconds before she bellowed, “It does not! We don’t have bylaws!” She snatched the paper from Maggie’s hand and read. Finally, she asked, “Laura and I actually signed something like this?”
“Um, no,” Maggie admitted. “We just made it up this morning.”
“You can’t just make things up!”
“Sure, we can,” Maggie responded.
“We’re quite good at it,” Janice added with a snicker.
Holly’s hands went to her hips. “Where is everyone else?”
Maggie shrugged and simply repeated, “We’re here for Laura.”
“She’s in the living room.” She turned, and although the living room was well within earshot, she shouted, “Babe, I think we’ve got trouble.”
Don’t get excited! If she had her shirt over her head, I’d be hiding, not frickin’ bloggin’ about it! 🙄
1) I mean wild as in she just unleashed Deirdre, Polly, and two women who were here long before the DWD. You can find them in the LAC Bookstore, and, as I once suggested (although for a very different reason), they are free to a good home.
2) I mean wild as in she sent Nora Butler to a corner for a timeout. I know that corner. We all know that corner. shudder
3) I mean wild as in she has gone back to work on LAC 13! That makes the rulers of the gray-mattered roost very happy. Feel free to thank me for this sudden turn of events. I knew posting a rough-draft snippet would get her missing us and back where she belongs. Go, Kate!
PS: I’ll see about swiping the entire Chapter 1, since the snippet seemed to have riled some of you far more than it incited her to get back at it. Jesus, you guys can be as pushy as Laura … and we love you for it.
Did you ever notice how assassination starts with two asses? There could be a very good reason for that.
We just get used to this Deirdre Munro when, lo and behold, we find two more short story characters in here. No shit! I kid you not. There’s a Polly McDowell and a Nora Butler wandering around as though in zombie states. It’s kind of creepy, like they are there but not all the way or something. But I don’t think the author has sold out to concoct zombie fiction, but I’ve learned never, ever to trust an author. Okay, except maybe with my life.
Maybe this kind-of-not-all-there thing is because that’s how they are in the stories she’s working on. Or maybe that’s what it looks like when one goes from character sketch to full-blown character. I don’t know. … Holy shit, maybe that’s what it looked like when I came into being! I don’t know for sure. … But, I would bet a life savings of DWD bucks that that was not how it was with Claudia. The green-eyed beauty would have existed completely, perfectly as soon as there was even the slightest flicker in my brain stem. Otherwise, there would truly not have been a flicker in me at all.
Anyway, the author’s got a couple more stories in the works, and in the meantime, LAC 13 just kind of gasps there on the page.
Oh, an idea! An idea! What would happen if I merely cut/pasted a few paragraphs of the rough draft? Ha, a publicly posted rough draft would get her ass in gear!
Very bravely and with great determination, Maggie rapped on the door of the Crawford-McCallister homestead. “Nobody lose your nerve,” she ordered.
I took a deep breath and watched Kris and Janice do the same.
Momentarily, the door opened and a seemingly confused Holly appeared.
Maggie point-blankly and very loudly said, “We’re here for Laura.”
“Good morning to you, too.” She narrowed her eyes at us.
Unswayed by Holly’s demeanor, Maggie explained, “Section 37a of the Lesbian Adventure Club bylaws reads, ‘Any couple forfeiting their weekend in the established rotation also forfeits all their rights. They are, in essence, at the mercy of all other members.'”
Holly gnawed on that for several seconds before she bellowed, “It does not! We don’t have bylaws!” She snatched the paper from Maggie’s hand and read. Finally, she asked, “Laura and I actually signed something like this?”
“Um, no,” Maggie admitted. “We just made it up this morning.”
“You can’t just make things up!”
“Sure, we can,” Maggie responded.
“We’re quite good at it,” Janice added with a snicker.
Holly’s hands went to her hips. “Where is everyone else?”
Maggie shrugged and simply repeated, “We’re here for Laura.”
“She’s in the living room.” She turned, and even though the living room was well within earshot, she shouted, “Babe, I think we’ve got trouble.”
…to be continued… (as soon as the author remembers her priorities)
After much DWD deliberation, we’ve released the short story character we had in seclusion. Yes, Deirdre Munro is free to walk among us—as long as she doesn’t try to take over, of course. (Plus, we think she may know Charles.) After getting to know her a bit, we actually found ourselves high-fiving her. Okay, at least the crybabies did. The littermates proved a bit reluctant. Once you read the story, the reason for that will become abundantly clear.
When would that be? you ask. Damn good question! Soon, I should think.
