step it up

Alright you guys. I'm on the home stretch. The plot-board driven YA experiment with the working title RAISING CHEER is about 30 pages from finished. Draft one, anyway. How do I know this? Because of the plot board! It's all mathematical and exact, like a science lab. I have five small scenes and a grand finale to left to write. I can see that yellow tape and I'm gonna throw my hands up and break it with my belly when I barge through.

What's with the exercise metaphor? Well, I'll tell you. As a nice Mother's Day gift, my husband dragged me to an 8:30 aerobics class at the gym today. Something called Sweat Like a Pig Plus Abs. Or maybe it was Simulate Labor and Delivery Plus Abs. Anyway, the Mother's Day correlative was apt--the lunges and the quad stuff in particular resembled that 8-centimeters dilated portion of labor. Transition, I think it's called. When you call your husband a lot of really mean names and he disappears out of the labor room under the pretense of having to go to the bathroom? Girls, you know what I'm talking about, right?

I guess I'm sort of at the transition stage of RAISING CHEER, too. Rising action, shit hitting the fan, and one last BIG EVENT before all is mostly well, and my beloved characters are out of danger. The proverbial infant safely delivered and suckling at the breast.

And speaking of breasts, got any good sports bra recommendations?

breaking bad(ish)

There's this speed trap nearby. One of those places where, on a four-lane road with the suffix "Highway,"  the posted speed abruptly changes from 40 to 30. Over the past six months the photo radar folk have sporadically set up shop, and issued, what I think of as, "pussy tickets" -- because they arrive by mail a week or so later. An envelope with a low-rez picture of the driver looking very deer-in-the-headlights as the flash of the camera catches them in a sort of Cops rendition of their malfeasance.

How do I know this?

Don't be coy. You know I got one of these fuckers. $168 for going 41 mph in a 30.

I'm no anarchist. Yes, I was traveling at the upper end of the continuum for "appropriate" - Yes, I disobeyed the law. Guilty. And pissed off--more because I was "called out" than for the actual penalty. I scribbled off a "but...but..." sort of letter, shoved my check in an envelope, and, as they are wont to do when a driver pleads for mercy, the ODOT folk reduced my fine and sent half my money back to me.

Where am I going with this? Yep, this is a correlative for the plot board post, and my personal relationship with rules. Particularly rules I set up for myself. So. Update. I'm about two-thirds through the first draft of my excellent new adventure, and the sticky notes, try as they might, are getting dissed left and right. I'm peeling them off like scabs, and slapping new ones down in their place. I'll write up to a plot point, all good intentions (seatbelt fastened, not on my cell phone), and then the character will say something that's not on the map. And, I have to say, my reaction to this is, well, nothing short of joy.

Of course, this makes things complicated.

There's a bit of undo-undo-undo that ensues. And some replotting moving forward. Which leads to further replotting. All because my antagonist decides to give the middle finger to God. And by God, I mean me.

That old saw about the headlights and driving only as far as they illuminate the path ahead, but making the whole trip that way? All my fancy GPS equipment is recalculating. It's terrifying, really, but so much fun. Foot on the pedal and all that.

What rules do you like breaking most?

a pantser turns plotter?

Preamble: First, I'm posting this while watching Austin Powers with the family (remember that flick? still uncomfortably funny after all these years), so imagine the title of this post posed in a Dr. Evil voice.

Second, yeah, playing around with the new Blogger templates again. Like? Hate? Feedback appreciated.

Okay, so the science fair-looking set up to your left is my very first ever plot board for a new WIP. Understand, I have never been a fan of the outline. As I explained to a writer friend the other day, the 3-Act structure feels very contrived to me. The literary equivalent of a Spanx garment--you know, squeezing the goodies into a shape deemed commercially viable? And, you know, having spent the last 22 years in Portland, I'm a free-flowing type. A wither-thou-goest with the goodies.

Well, friends, I'm trying something new. I'm taking my high concept YA idea and plotting the fuck out of it. Every chapter, every scene, in service to rising action and carefully constructed reveal. Those hearts, the pink ones? That would be some sort of crucial interaction between the two main characters. The white hearts are crucial interaction between secondary characters. The stars? Reveals. The main plot point of the chapter. And the sticky notes indicate chapter synopses.

So I'm 100 pages in, which translates to the end of that left-most column under ACT II, and I have to say, I'm not hating it. In fact, I'm sort of like a newly reformed meat-eater with my "I've seen the light and I'm never going back to eating flesh" sort of sanctimonious superiority. Why? Well, to start, there are infinitely less choices, and so the writing goes faster. I'm moving toward something as I tap tap tap my sentences, one following the other in service of the next big thing. As opposed to my usual discovery process, where I wander down the dark hallways of my mind, a blind girl being led by the hand to ... what? A vampire? A witch? An evil stepmother?

It's like having GPS, you know? Those little stars and hearts (I had, in my hand at the store, pony-head post-its, but I put them back. I mean, I had to draw the line somewhere). There's less going on in my head: less chaos, less confusion. Which leads, I hope, to deeper focus in the scene itself.

But I admit, my loving this plot board method could be totally premature. Tap me on the shoulder a month from now, when I'm rereading these crafty passages. I might very well be in self-loathingville. I admit to often being prematurely zealous about this and that. But meanwhile, I've got the Nikes on. I'm just doing it. Fake 'til I make it. Running up that hill. You? Plotters? Pantsers? What say ye? (If you can figure out the comment functionality on this new Blogger template).

P.S. Austin Powers is over, and now it's Hangover on the TV. Disturbingly, my 13-yr-old knows it by heart because he's watched it eight times.