So It Goes

 I believe I mentioned it before, but will again in case I didn't--I have been working on a novel, DUSK, which is now called MAGICAL BODIES, for five years. 

I am now in the part where I start to blend the two novel drafts together, make several characters who were too similar to each other in personality or story, and hammering out a new plot.

When I was last writing, I was writing a character who is just basically anger incarnate. And i want her to go away. I am not certain she really helps the plot at all, and I am not sure her magical powers will serve anyone well at all. The only way it could work would be for her to have a change at the end where she starts using her anger for good, but at this point, I cannot see her doing this. She's had a hard life, and she's angry for all the things that have happened to her, her family, and those around her. And she wants them to pay. 

I dunno, I had to stop writing her and I haven't had a chance to move back to it since. And her anger has been bothering me.

This coincided with Meat Loaf's untimely and unneeded death from COVID-19, so I was already angry about that. I channeled that anger into this character, but the absolutely depth of the anger was much deeper than I wanted to go at that moment. 

But I know I need to go there. If this character is to be saved and if she has anything to actually add to the plot, I have to explore the depths of her anger. And it's scary.

So I think I am going to just put a pin in her story for the moment. I have some edits and some notes to put in for when I come back to it, but i think I am done with that chapter for the moment.

I think this is what is going to happen: I am going to continue working on the novel and blending and tossing things out, and what I need to do with her is just going to show up when I do more work with other characters because that's how things have been seeming to work for the last 5 years. I guess we will see.

I just started reading 'Slaughthouse Five' for the first time, and it's just an odd, strangely engaging book. So far, there's been a lot of reading in circles with these characters, which to me is quite interesting and telling of the character wanting to write a book about Dresden, and then seemingly out of nowhere, Vonnagut will come up with these deep amazing truths and smack you in the face with them. I think I like it. If anything, I am learning from it. And I guess that's the point.