What a great day! And on so little sleep, too. I had my writer’s group last night. And for the first time since I joined that group, I had nothing to share. I’m the only one who didn’t have anything to share. Anyway…we went pretty late, so by the time I got home, I had a hard time winding down and going to sleep, even though I knew today would be an early day (Andy takes pre-algebra Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings before school, so he has to leave the house at 7:05). So I only got about 4-5 hours of sleep.
And then today I knew I had to buckle down on I Am Anna Winkler. I’m supposed to have two chapters to share with Andy’s class tomorrow. I did not have two chapters this morning. I did not even have two words this morning. Or any idea what was going to happen in those two chapters should they magically appear. If I didn’t have this commitment to go read to his class, I know I wouldn’t be any further along right now than I was at 6:00 this morning. But somehow I managed to pull two chapters out of thin air today. In fact, I even managed to raise the stakes a bit and have Anna doing things rather than simply reacting to what’s being done to her. I think I even know where I’m going from here. That’s major progress!
That’s not to say, however, that I don’t still have a huge mess. This book is full of plot holes. The characters need to be better developed. Motivations need to be clearer. I’ve dropped threads that I started with and picked up new ones out of the blue. And the writing doesn’t sing. But I’m determined to just get to the end, so I have a complete draft (and so I don’t leave Andy’s class hanging), and then figure out how to fix things. I am hereby giving myself permission to write a sucky first draft. I’m even giving myself permission to read a sucky first draft in public. And I’m not stressing about it (pressing the Staples EASY button here…”that was easy!”). It’s a good lesson for the kids, too…it’s good for them to see that the vast majority of writing is actually REwriting. Even “real authors” write sucky first drafts!
Andy and I weren’t able to jog yesterday or the day before because he had piano and play practice two days ago, and orchestra and play practice yesterday. But we did get out there again today. You should take a day off here and there anyway. I was afraid we took too much time off though, but apparently we didn’t. Not only did Andy go just as far as he went three days ago, he went further! We jogged probably .6 of a mile at once, and a total of .8 of mile (we walked even more). And he’s really got a good attitude about the jogging (and a new positive attitude about P.E.). It’s nice to see.
And if all that isn’t enough to make it a great day…(if my son Ben is reading this, I’m sure he’s thinking I should finish that sentence with “Ben found a copy of Oblivion!!!!!” But surprisingly enough, the fact that he found a copy of this computer game that he’s been looking forward to for months just didn’t affect my day too much…) What really makes today a great day is…today Bob and I celebrate 20 years of marriage! It’s hard to believe. Where have all those years gone?
And the news just gets better and better…Remember the guy who hates to travel? He wants us to take an Alaskan cruise this summer to celebrate our anniversary! (Didn’t I just say last week that there would be plenty of opportunity for travel later…An Alaskan cruise is WAY better than Chicago!) I can’t think of another trip I’d rather take!!! Oh yeah, he earned MAJOR points for that…