I’m certainly not out of the cold-virus-woods yet…but man, today was a friggin breath of fresh air. Holy bejesus did it feel good to be able to have a work day today. I feel SO MUCH better. Not totally back yet, and I definitely took it easy and didn’t push it…but much better. Even more encouraging is that throughout all this, my snotty snots have stayed clear, for the most part. None of that yellow, or worse green, snot that means I’m also battling some sort of bacterial infection. It’s been clear the whole time. Even the stuff I’ve coughed up. I didn’t even know that was possible, and I’m pretty sure it’s because I decided to totally get off my feet and take it easy for three straight days. Not try to push through. Might save me a whole week of feeling like shit. Let’s hope it does anyway.
That said…I am woefully behind where I wanted to be with work. Not on my novel…no, that’s the big win through all of this. I’ve stayed on course with that, putting in my time every day and making some great progress on it all. But I am definitely behind where I wanted to be with the Netflix work. But…I’m actually going to take the same approach to that I have with my novel writing: less deadline thinking, and more just focusing on putting in the time. I will, without question, have to work through the weekend and probably work some over time…but if I do that, I really do think I can get it all done still by when I wanted to. Made some great progress today, even though I definitely wasn’t at full capacity in the old noggin.
For my writing today, I wrote part of a fan love letter to myself about my book. It’s an exercise as part of the rewriting process that helps with figuring out what the idealized version of your book is. Courtesy of Susan Dennard, who I *think* I’ve given credit to on this blog before, but I am using her step-by-step process to rewrite my first book. I’m keeping notes on the whole process to decide what I might tweak, and what I like and dislike…but so far, I have to say I don’t really know if I’d change a thing about it at all. It’s so detailed and work-intensive…it actually takes away the pressure of the larger overall task, which is super daunting; turning a novel that’s totally rough and needs so much work into something polished, tight, efficient, and STILL something magical and exciting.
So, yeah…I wrote this “love letter” and I found myself crying some real genuine tears as I wrote about my characters because I realized just how much I love them. And I really meant that literally…these fictional people feel like family to me. It’s not always wholly reflected on the page, which is what this whole exercise is about, writing what you love most about the people you’re creating…but man, if I can nail down how much I truly FEEL about these wonderful make-believe people, even just a fraction of what I know is there, then this book will do its job. It really, really, really underscores to me guys what the real “magic” is to story-telling, and it’s something that I’ve said many times before: it’s all about the characters. That is what we all care about. Everything else is just window dressing. The characters are what we fall in love with and would do anything for. And I would do anything for my characters, because I love them that much. It is for them that I write, or rewrite, this story now. I started out writing for me…now I rewrite for them. They deserve to be written properly, as if they were real people, because they are real to me.
I remember watching David O. Russell a couple years ago at a WGA event talking about how much he fell in love with his characters, and I remember that really made an impression on me because I could SEE it in his movies, how much he truly LOVED these crazy, wacky, amazing, sometimes horrible but always something wondering characters that he put in his movies. I could see how much he loved them. It oozed from the screen whenever I watched his movies, and so I remember thinking to myself, “I must figure out how to do that, too. How to fall head over heels in love with my characters like he does.” Well…I’m starting to feel what that’s like. And it’s everything. It’s everything.
That’s all I got for tonight. Today’s video is currently going up. Not sure I picked the best month to do the videos this time around, but hey. It’s definitely a slice of my real life, guys! 😛
Good night. Here’s to feeling better tomorrow as well, and that taking the time off I did was enough to get my back fully up onto my feet from here!