Chapter Thirteen

I'd fallen behind on my word count for NaNoWriMo. Life, as usual, had gotten in the way. Despite the fact that work had been incredibly slow, there'd always been a daily mini-crisis popping up to prevent me from working on things. Plus I really wasn't sure what the hell I was writing. I'd chucked my original plot out the window on the second day, and started fresh with new characters and a completely ludricrous plot about a slacker psychic and a government conspiracy and uncommunicative boyfriends. It was absolute crap. Perfect for NaNo, right?

I fluctuated between days of writing my ass off and days of just staring blankly at the manuscript with no idea where to go with it.

Not a big deal, I figured.

Last night, I had a brainstorm on the way home from work that actually made the plot work and would probably carry me through to the 50K mark. Granted, it was still crap. I scribbled down a few notes in my project folder and lost myself in a really bad episode of CSI and a really good episode of Without a Trace.

Friday night, I told myself. Friday night I would write. I would do 10,000 words in a weekend and get back on track.

7:30, Friday night. I went on an emergency mission of mercy to feed Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern's cats. I envisioned the next few chapters in my novel, heard the dialogue in my head, saw the cheesy chase scene. Brilliant!

(I also realized I was writing a bad X Files episode. Well, if Mulder and Scully were twenty-something slackers instead of FBI agents, and Scully was psychic, and the episode had been written by Jerry Bruckheimer, Joss Whedon, and Kevin Smith. And they'd all smoked a giant bag of crack before they pitched it.)

I drove home, opened a bottle of Gallo Café Zinfandel, changed into comfy clothes, and settled down to make more notes while I watched Joan of Arcadia. At 9:00, I would write.

I started sobbing my eyes out around 8:35. I didn't stop until about 9:15. Have I mentioned how brilliant Joan of Arcadia is?

They killed off a character that I've hated since the moment they introduced her. I saw the death scene coming a mile away. I called the cute Gift of the Magi-esque scene between Luke and Grace. I saw the Hamlet references coming. I swooned at the cuteness of Joan and Adam's first real date, complete with Joan's mom trying to hold back the tears. I even called the appearance of DogWalkerGod as soon as I heard the distant barks in the climactic end scene. (DogWalkerGod is played by Russ Tamblyn. He was Riff in West Side Story and Gideon in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He was Dr. Jacoby in Twin Peaks. He's also Amber Tamblyn's dad - she's the eponymous Joan.)

And they used Warren Zevon's "Keep Me in Your Heart" for that last climactic scene. That song alone makes me sob.

That's good writing folks. Yes, I cry at the crop of a hat, but I was sobbing loudly for the last fifteen minutes of that show. Ma Huang actually came in to check on me. (He seems to do that when I'm visibly upset about things. Kismet, on the other hand, couldn't care less.)

And now it's after 10:00, and I'm trying to pull myself together out of the sorrow that I'm feelig over a bunch of imaginary characters on TV so I can write my imaginary characters into the worst chase scene ever.

I just wish that Rhapsody would stop playing blocks of Elliott Smith songs. Stupid shufflemonkeys, I'm depressed enough already!

14, 548 words down. Back into the fray....