Musings Over Lunch

Yes, 4pm is lunch for me. Well, at least when I'm mid to closing shift anyway. But, meh, whatever. Is what it is, yeah? Retail. Gotta love it.

Anyway, this week has been rough and I've been taking it out on my baby and my manuscript. I've been writing Dean's story pretty much nonstop since April or March 2009. It has gone through so many permutations and shifts and style changes that it's hard to believe I've stuck with it for so long. Dean actually started as a short story. A horrible and nasty evil short story that got, ultimately, trashed by my writing class. I went back and made it more, edited it, and kept working on it. From eleven scenes it morphed into a novel, maybe 300 pages. I won NaNoWriMo 2010 with Dean and learned a lot about him and the rest of his expanding cast. From there it went into two books, where it stayed for a long time. Then I took a Classics class on mythology and was promptly informed that there were three books. Everything was planned out but it kept changing.

Book 1 was very clearly going to be focused on Dean and the Squad, Medic, and Dean's fall into insanity and evilness. Book 2 was about redemption and dealing with a threat that would destroy the world. Book 3 was about Dean and Medic getting sucked into a war of the gods that they wanted nothing to do with but couldn't walk away from because of who was involved.

But.

Then Book 1 decided to be long and cut off at a good scene and made the main focus on Dean and his relationship with the Squad. Make the knife hurt more as I twist it. So I'm editing and wincing at the big holes and start writing more to fill those holes, and I'm watching as it starts evolving more and more. It's a little wince worthy, especially when I can see the need to go back and thoroughly change mass bits of the story just to get everything just right. Why yes, I am a perfectionist, thanks for asking. ;)

On top of it, as this week has been harsh, I've been taking more and more out of my best boy. Which makes for a great story but makes me feel a little awful....and whine at my friend/cheerleader/first reader to make sure I'm not being tooooo cruel. Well. Crueler than I need to be.

Two years. Almost three now, actually. I feel like I'm going to have a party soon for him.