I keep having to remind myself that things take time.
The last few weeks have been stressful. We have a new person at work that I am helping to train and I have been pulled into more of a Team Lead position since I am the only one still here from the beginning now. I am not a natural team lead. Dealing with projects, meetings, and people in a constant “On, Let’s get work done.” position exhausts me.
I need to figure out a way to force myself to exercise more. I would like to sign up for some classes or join a walking group. I thought about this earlier but most of them met up way too early in the afternoon and I always missed the meets. I could make a walking group on Meetup but I am not sure I want to add another responsibility to my already packed life. Something to think on.
Because of work a lot of things have been put on the back burner. My home life and hobbies have been put on hold as was my health. Now that I have more help at work I hope to start evening this out soon.
I have a week until my drop dead date for my novel and I do not think I will make it. I didn’t work on my novel at all last week. I got stuck on several scenes I want to add and didn’t move past them. The only good news is that I think I have a plan on how to work out the Riot scene that has been driving me nuts.
I got some great advice from an article I read last week.
“Writing Violence: Don’t make it bigger. Make it matter. Don’t make it easy, make it hard. Look to character and motivation to root the violence in the people committing it. Make everyone the hero of their story, make the violence matter as much to them as it should, and make it as surprising and upsetting as it is in life.”
I added the riot scene because I needed more conflict in the book, however at the same time I need to make the scene push the characters forward in some way, expose some issue or vulnerability, show how the violence impacts the main character.
Sadly to do this I think I need to injure or kill a side character. I need a major action that will push my main character to act against the violence. She has been coasting along as people around her make decisions about her life. It’s time for her to stand up and fight back.
I will soon be looking for Beta readers once I finish the edits and get my book reformatted. Anyone interested?