I Am Stuck

I hate this. It's the worst part of writing. It's when you get to a seminal point in your story and you have to make a decision. The issue for me, now, is story development. In 'In A Green & Shady Place' I have reached a crossroads.

If I go on as I have the story at this moment, it's too vanilla. There's nothing exciting, nothing to question or ask, so it's dull.

If I change it up, as I've attempted, it affects several major story points later on. It also makes it harder to get from here to there, because I do want to get to there. There has a point and a purpose.

Is there a third alternative? Yes. And there's a fourth and a fifth, but which is right? Do I spend time writing each out, developing each and winding them back to where I want them to be? That would be, probably, an extra ten or fifteen thousand words, just to experiment. Of that, I might end up using most, some or none, so where's the break point - the balance in cost/benefit?

I don't know, and that's why I'm stuck.

See, the deal is this. My female MC (main character) is in a miserable marriage. She's marking time, sticking it out because she feels she has to. Along the way she meets someone new, someone who is equally attracted to her. He offers her an honorable diversion - nothing untoward, at first (of course) - by offering her a job in his company. She accepts and talks her husband into agreeing with the move - even though it's a big move. For her. See, the job is in another city but he can't leave where they live because of family obligations, so it involves her living in this other city during the week and flying home on the weekends.

So, she starts her new existence. New job, new city and looking for an apartment. Weeks into her new situation something happens that makes the wisdom of what she's been doing questionable. And no, sorry, it's nothing immoral or unethical. It does lead to immoral and unethical, but by the time it does, I think the background is hinted at and explained well enough to make it understandable if not laudable.

After that, one thing leads to another, and I won't say what here because this is not what's got me stuck. She starts leaning strongly in the direction of divorcing the husband with whom she's been so unhappy. Before she does though, there's this seminal event which has me debating direction.

She's been invited to a party - a major Hollywood type party. Because she has to, simply for form, she asks her husband if he wants to go. He declines. And that's the breakpoint and it's where I'm stuck.

Option One: Hubby declines and she goes 'by herself'. She has a marvelous, vanilla and not page-turning-inducement Cinderella time. At the end of it, she goes back home with her lover where all is well until Sunday morning, about twelve or fifteen pages into this vanilla passage, when the society pages show up on the breakfast table. There, spread across the pages, are pictures of her and her lover. There's nothing more than embraces and smiles, but for anyone with eyes, it's obvious she's in love with him and he with her - which causes a future problem because her lover is a very well-known, high profile personality. The pictures will probably make the tabloid front pages. It is likely, then, that hubby will spot the pictures when he's standing in the check-out line at the supermarket. What else does one look at when standing in line to pay for your groceries?

From there, the way it is currently written, she decides that before the pictures show up at the check-stand, she has to break the news to hubby that she's leaving him. She's met someone new and their marriage is over. Which is more interesting because of the lead-up to it. And it's that which I don't want to lose - it's good stuff.

Option Two: Hubby declines and she goes 'by herself' but in the middle of the evening, hubby shows up. He's changed his mind. It spoils her evening and the weekend her lover had planned for them. Lover is frustrated and angry. Hubby is superior and annoying. Even though it's the last thing on the planet she wants, she has to take hubby home to her apartment - her sanctuary, the one place she has ever created just for herself.

With this, there are two other issues. First, this is a formal affair. If hubby shows up late in the evening, where did he change into his monkey suit? Of course he wouldn't fly from San Francisco to Los Angeles dressed to the nines, so he would have had to change, somewhere.

Does he show up at her apartment? That has potential, because she isn't there when he gets there. She's running around other places - getting fixed up, meeting her lover and the limo, and riding to the venue. It still leaves the problem of where he goes from traveler to formally dressed, but that's minor. Heck, he could change at the bus station or in the back of the taxi cab for that matter. And it would add interest because of irritation and accusation.

But I don't have that now. So, back to the apartment and the potential for divergence there.

Option Two-A: She takes hubby back to her place after the party. Hubby doesn't find the aftershave and extra toothbrush under the sink. She manages to get him out of her hair and send him on his way Saturday morning and then calls lover and apologizes. They get together, talk it all the way out and it picks up from where they had wanted to be eighteen or twenty hours earlier. Then the society pages, etc.

Again, that's boring as can be. Pedestrian and milksop stuff that isn't going to promote any interest at all in what comes next.


Option Two-B: He does find the evidence under the bathroom sink. Then what? Does she tell him, 'it's over, there's someone else?'.

If I do that, I lose all of the other interest. If she doesn't, it's not believable. Of course there would be a row. Of course he would yell, scream and demand that she come clean. Of course he would storm through the apartment, searching for other evidence, which he would find.

Option Three: She manages to get her lover to the side during the party, they have a heated discussion. At the end of which he recognizes she really didn't have a choice but to ask the interloper to interlope. In capitulation and compromise, he offers her an out. His assistant booked a room at a local hotel for an investor who called at the last minute to say they couldn't be there. He offers her and hubby the room, and she accepts. It keeps hubby out of her sanctuary. It also solves the problem of the aftershave and toothbrush. And leaves the door open for the resurrected weekend because she can use the excuse of 'I have to work because there's a lot to be done after the party'.

See? It's not easy and I'm not sure which direction to take. Although this, the putting down on paper, does help me formulate a strategy. I just don't know for sure... Hmmm. Thinking... thinking... thinking... bingo! I've got it.

Thanks! That was a tremendous help and I know how I'm going to tackle this issue.

Now - I hope you have an equally successful day.

Best~
Philippa

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Oops. That's Right. I'm Not Supposed to Have An Opinion

So, last Friday I blew up. I do from time-to-time, and then I usually let it out in words. Sometimes verbally, sometimes on a page. In Friday's case, it was on a page - a virtual page on an internet blogging site. I spoke my mind, said my piece and was ready to walk away.

When one of the other characters in the drama apologized last evening and I saw it (about seven o'clock or so, here), I thanked her. I gave credit where it is due because, as I said last night, it takes courage to admit when we've stepped over the line.

Thinking about it again this morning, though, I have to confess that I sort of misspoke. I said it took courage to admit when we're wrong. However, I need to amend that statement because, in the overall scheme of the situation, she wasn't wholly wrong. Misguided is, perhaps, a better word. She took a bit of fluff more seriously than it should have been. No matter.

I thank her again, today, for taking down what bothered me. I thanked her last night, too, by posting my acceptance on both the thread I had left on the site, and on a new one titled the same as last night's post. However, when I was posting my thanks on the site last night, I noticed a new post on the thread that's caused such controversy. I looked.

'Tag-a-long' posted another picture in the same vein. To me, that's pathetic. It's an obvious cry for attention, the 'me, too!' bellow of an insecure child seeking equal attention. A bit sad, actually, when viewed in that light.

Now, I could restir that pot, but I won't. I'll let it sit and it will, eventually sink to the bottom where it belongs.

But this raises another interesting point. Some believe that if you wannabe anything in this world, you should not blog or opine about anything that might be considered controversial or confrontational on a public forum. Some agent or editor or someone might see it and it might be off-putting. That thought came to me even before I hit the 'Post' button on Friday's diatribe and that got me to thinking.

I've thought about it all weekend, since Friday, and I don't buy it. When someone hires me as a writer, or as an EA or as anything else, they're getting the whole shebang - opinions and all. It's a bit like asking someone, particularly someone of strong will and passion, to stop breathing.

Now, if I were writing apocalyptic nonsense, threats of some kind or some sort of manifesto then, yes, they should absolutely take pause and consider. At that point they should probably call the cops.

I am passionate. I feel strongly about things. I have opinions and I speak my mind. Sometimes I'm wrong or ill-informed, other times I'm not. Sometimes I have to retract or apologize, and I never shrink from doing so - when I think it's needed or warranted. And, based on past experience, I don't think I'm unreasonable in that decision making process. If it's wrong, it's wrong and I can usually see it. If not, whack me over the head a couple of times and see if I can be made to change my mind.

Aside from that, however, before I am a 'wannabe' anything - a writer, successful in whatever I attempt, the best damned EA on the face of the planet or anything else, I am a human being. God or Nature gave me a brain and I've figured out how to use it. For me to sublimate my passions, my beliefs, who I am for fear of hurting someone's feelings or offending their sensibilities raises an interesting question: Who is right in that case?

Have I not the right and freedom to express myself? Or do they (whoever they are) have a greater right to dictate terms about how I live and think and speak?

Within the philosophy of 'Thou shalt not speak thy mind' lies a contradiction. According to that, I have no rights while they have all the rights. After all, if I do write or speak about what I think is right or wrong, brilliant to stupid, they might retaliate by not hiring me or by not buying my books.

If I allow 'everyone' else - probably no more than a few as a percentage of all humanity, really - to dictate terms about how I live and speak and act because I might anger or offend them, what does that say about me? What does it say about the solidity of my beliefs and convictions? If I am so afraid of the opinions of others that I hold back my own, how strong are they? Beyond that, what does it say about how I view myself?

I don't take myself that lightly. I'm not serious about myself, either because that's too much. But I do respect myself.

It has taken me many years, most of my adult life, actually, to be able to say that, and to mean it. There's a lot of garbage behind that, but in the past ten years or so, I have come to respect myself. To think well of myself, and I am not going to let anyone - not a single person on this planet - take that away from me. Which I would if I were to accept the idea that speaking out, plainly and honestly from my point of view is somehow wrong.

It is an interesting wrestling match, though. Do as "they" say and I betray myself. Do as I want, I risk censure and oblivion (if I were ever to reach a point where anyone is paying attention and they take umbrage). Still, given who I am, the strength of my feelings and beliefs, I would have to turn myself inside out and tie myself up in knots not to speak my mind - and I am incapable of doing any such thing.

So I won't.

I will do as I want, as I feel is right and as I am driven, within the confines of decency and decorum - with the occasional side trip to Vulgarity when the mood / need arises. I am, first and foremost, me. After that I am everything else. Until those roles reverse and I place more importance on the Everything Else than on the Me, I shall continue as I have.

Glad we've straightened that out.

Hope your day is lovely!

Best~
Philippa

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