Goodbye

In the throes of editing my delicious heavenly adventure, I realized that I had to kill off a character. Alexander has too many people in his posse and one of them has to go. Which is rather harsh because all of my characters are dead already. Which means I have to do more than kill off a character. I have to completely obliterate him from the universe.

I narrowed the candidates down to two and I took my two character cards to my husband.

Me: I have to kill off a character.
Him: Kill Martha.
Me (waving the two cards in his face): Hello...these cards are yellow. Obviously that means a male character.
Him: Okay...
Me: So it's Benji or Ferris.
Him: Oh, get rid of Benji. Why would you name a character after a dog?
Me: No, I think it needs to be Ferris.
Him (passionately pumping his fist in the air): Save Ferris!

After I recovered from my fit of giggles, I took my cards and made my decision. In memory of the dear, departed Ferris, I decided to honor him with a song.

Save Ferris
Goodbye

That feels better. Now, 80 pages into a 190 page manuscript, I have to start over. I have to remove all traces of Ferris from the story and give any lines that he might have to other members of Alexander's posse. Sigh...it's a good thing I love my story or this could be a seriously painful re-edit.

Roaring Bellows

The soft, delicate whispers have become loud, frantic shouts. The post-its have piled high and spilled over into notebooks. I am chagrined...

And unable to continue losing myself in other novelist's works.

I have put off the day of first read-through for a myriad of reasons...but now it is here.

I will probably shiver in fright at all the mistakes that three months ago would have been invisible. I will probably shrink in embarrassment at how much work is actually required to get section three in line with the rest of the story.

But I am ready to begin my first read-through of my heavenly adventure. I'll start off with a quick bloody death and work my way through the mucky mud that needs to be shaped and smoothed into a piece of work that I could actually show to another human being.

A man is not completely born until he is dead.
-Benjamin Franklin