Deadlines are My Friend

Oh hai. I promised I'd update this place on my progress (or lack of) with Music Lessons. Well... let's just say, lack of is more appropriate.

After a month of pretty much ignoring my little Scrivener file, I signed up to partake in NaNoEdMo. I don't feel fully committed to it yet, but perhaps I will.

I have cracked open the lovely screwed up Music Lessons draft off and on between the end of NaNo and the new year. Last night, I was sifting through it and thinking maybe it wasn't so bad after all. Between 50K+ words of chaos and the two versions of my short story, I think I should have enough raw material to patch scenes and find the real storyline. If I've learned anything from writing and revising music reviews this past year, it's that I am definitely a patchwork writer, throwing words into scraps of paragraphs and moving them around until something clicks into place. It's a frustratingly inefficient method, but it always seems to deliver in the end.

But another annoying new twist? I'm tinkering with the idea of writing it in first person perspective. Again. If I do this, it will probably be the fourth or fifth perspective shift since I started the crazy thing. Argh.

Blame it on The Catcher in the Rye, a book I just read for the first time that reminded me just how far a quirky voice can go in making a story work. It's like the rambling teenage voice captured me so well I wanted to try to do the same for Neil. He's no Holden Caulfield, but perhaps he cold carry the story with his view of the world and his family.

Of course, that's assuming I can even find Neil's quirky voice... when I tried it during NaNo, he was boring me to death. :) I'm working on an alternate version of one of my favorite scenes to see if it clicks... might toss it up here when I'm done for evidence of work.

But for now... it's late, I'm tired, and I really would rather just sleep now and write later.

Hurrah for updates!

P.S. Regarding my comment of seeing how many words are left once I cut the fluff/filler/experiments/misplaced scenes? 41,167. Yeah.