battling the green death

The title of this post is not in reference to any plague that I am fighting (although my throat has that suspicious feeling that could either be the onset of a cold or the desire for a stiff drink); it is, however, a song from the soundtrack to "How to Train Your Dragon," which is the only music that I can write to these days. And, as I am working on the end of the book, green death seems strangely appropriate. This is not the end that I cobbled together for the contest that I entered in December; that ending was rather like the nests used in Chinese bird's nest soup -- overhyped and supposedly a delicacy, but actually composed of my own saliva rather than anything of real substance. Instead, I'm writing a brand spanking new ending. For those of you who are keeping score at home, I've written enough words for this book to have two or three whole books, and I'm still about 10-15k words away from the projected end of this version. Sigh.

But, today was good; I dragged myself out of bed, ate some oatmeal, and alternated between procrastinating and brainstorming the next scene before eating lunch and then speeding down to Santana Row for what was supposed to be my last spa treatment before canceling my membership like a good unemployed person. However, in an attempt to keep members, they require a written statement with the reason why you're canceling (jhokers), and I'm too late for the next billing period (double jhokers). So, I guess I'm going back one more time. This time was good enough to make me reconsider canceling; I got an excellent facial, my skin feels great, and I was entertained by the esthetician (who is going back to school to become a CPA). But, canceling is the smart thing to do, so I suppose I'll go back down there sometime soon with a written cancelation request and try to get them to let me stop being a customer.

After that, I browsed around Borders a bit (where I saw a prime example of why they were in trouble -- there was absolutely no one in the checkout line when I walked in, but there were forty people all drinking coffee and not buying books in the cafe upstairs). Then, I came home, procrastinated until dinnertime, ate some Amy's enchilada (yes, I am a gourmand), and then settled in to write. I ended up writing 2500 words (about ten pages) tonight, and they're words I feel good about -- I'll have to do some editing later, but the bones of the scene (which is not a double entendre -- there is no sexytime in these scenes!) are solid. I wrote them out by hand, typed them up, and then made some notes for how the scene I left off in the middle of ends. I also reconsidered a minor subplot that was going to rear its ugly head in the final climax, and I think I may cut it/combine it with another one -- as things stand, I think the ending is going to start to drag if I prolong it much beyond the battle they're currently fighting, so this is going to be it. Yay.

If I keep pushing hard, I should be done with this version on Tuesday or Wednesday next week -- and I cannot tell you how freaking ready I am to type "the end", even if it's not really the end and I'll have to do at least another month of editing and revisions. But, if I can finish the draft by Tuesday, I should theoretically be on track for getting it to my agent by the first of March -- I'll take a day or two off after finishing the draft so that it can cool off, and then spend a couple of weeks fixing known problems before sending it to my beta readers. And then, I can finish this sonofabitch and submit it and start on a new story that feels more like a shiny new Porsche Boxster convertible and less like a beat-up tan Nissan pickup which lacks all modern comforts (which, for those of you missing one or both of the comparison, is the car that I dream of and the car the I first drove in high school).

But now, I should really sleep; I have brunch plans tomorrow, and then I have to hit the writing hard -- I'm not taking Saturday off because I intend to take a couple of days off when I finish the draft. Goodnight!