Progress Report.

We're about to send Pyromancy to the betas, and there's been an odd week here, where Melanie and I are done but we're waiting for Sabrina to give it a once over before we send it, so there's a vacancy of WIPs, for me.

 In some ways it's nice. I've read a bunch of amazing books, including Code Name Verity, which broke my brain and my heart at the same time. (I've since forced three separate women I know and love to READ this book.) But the absence has made me bring out Waxling again.

I've blogged about Waxling before. A few of you beautiful readers were even my betas for it.

I'll tell the rest of you what the betas came back with. It's a good story with major structural problems. And it took me a couple of months away to really digest the beta's comments, and figure out all the solutions.

So now, I'm applying the solutions and I'm happy with it. Sort of. The main problem, is that story tells two love stories, and it's a short book, and simply put-- that's too much love story into one book. One love story needs to be the star, so I've decided to back seat one of the love stories, which sounds dirtier than it is.

 Ha. I'm sorry, Mom. Anyway.

I'm getting to the point in the story where I have to delete stuff that I love, and I just don't want to and you can't make me.

 I keep thinking maybe I can just lose this paragraph, or chapter, or sentence, and the story will be just fine. I agree with my own thoughts, which is you know...helpful, and my mind and my outline all make sense, and I go to the text and highlight, and I just can't press delete. I created a separate file, so I can save it to put it in a later chapter, but I go to the file, highlight the words, press control c, and then can't do it.

They say you should kill your darlings. They say you shouldn't be so attached to any sentence or word that it hurts to cut them, or that you do whatever you can to serve the story and get the story out there, but I say, please don't make me cut this chapter. Please don't make me lose this line that I love, even if it makes the story better without it.

So it just sits there, in a file, waiting for me to be brave enough to break it.

Now the story has more structural problems than ever before. It's half way fixed, and half way broken. I love it and want everyone to read it, and it's broken and no one can read it until it's finished. I know how to finish it, but it means breaking my heart to do it, and no thank you. Let's watch cat videos instead.

So it's there. This story that I could finish and publish if I was just brave enough to lose a paragraph I love, or smart enough to find a reason to keep it.

I'm too close to the story now. It's too personal. It feels like taking my name off of it.

Writing is really hard work. It breaks your heart sometimes.

I'll take a breath.

 Kiss me, Hardy. Kiss me quick.

I just clicked delete.

~Sheena