Part/book 2 of the WIP, Blind Date with Death, is done! I feel like it’s going incredibly slowly, but that’s just me thinking in ghostwriting terms.
I’ve been making song playlists for each part of the WIP, and my brain is already playing the first song of the next part on repeat.
I usually make a playlist for each project (shorter or longer, depending on the project), but this projects is so long that if I try to listen to the same music all the way through it, I’ll go nuts. I just got done typing in the playlist to my notes, too, so I won’t lose it if YouTube decides to pull songs down. I often find fan-made videos of whatever I’ve watched lately and throw them on the playlist, which means I often go, “Wait, wasn’t there supposed to be another song there?”
Yesterday I did yoga (lower back still wincingly sore) but skipped walking in order to get writing done. I got the first pass on the scene done, then closed the laptop and walked around downtown Tampa for a while.
Mr. Assassin walked with me a little bit, but mostly it was just me taking photos. I walked through downtown and along the Tampa Riverwalk.–I also stopped at a Korean deli to try a dish that ended up in the book, tteokbokki, or spicy rice cakes (with cheese on top, in my case). If you think Korean food = comfort food, you’ll like it. I have a stew I need to try, too, but that’s for another day.
The Tampa Riverwalk wasn’t what I expected. I’m used to the river walks west of the Missouri, where nearly every available inch is crowded with cheesy tourist shops. The Tampa Riverwalk is more like a jogging trail that happens to sometimes wander next to upscale eateries. At least, that was my impression of the section I walked, from Armature Works to the little MacDill park. It’s very Polished and Downtownish, in a way that reminded me of Chicago (of all places). Probably not somewhere I’ll visit regularly, but good to see at least once.
While I was out walking, I “remembered” how to do the catwalk walk (albeit while wearing Crocs) and was turning that on and off as I went. I’m trying to remember who taught me and can’t remember. (I’ve never done a model walk as a model for something.) It’s weird being able to do it again. There’s definitely something changing down in my hips. I’m far more conscious of the muscles I’m using at this point, too.
I got back to the apartment and hung out with Ray for a while, screwed around and red webtoons, intended to go to bed…and stayed up to midnight working on the second pass of the scene instead. Some of these scenes are complex enough that I’ll write as far as I can with full depth of detail, then basically jot down dialogue and a few stage directions. Then I’ll cycle back through and add more stuff. This one was tough, a lot of stuff going on all at once that had to look easy and natural, if a bit overthinky (it was a Goob chapter).
I did some Midjourney, but not any new techniques–just stuff that I tried to run the other day but couldn’t while the AI was wonky. Rerunning things turned out well.
Yoga this morning, I was still fighting myself on the lower back stuff, so I spent more time with the upper back. Then I went out for a walk and felt O – L – D OLD. Headache, body sore, bleah. I hope I’m not crashing post-finishing-part-of-book, which I’ll do sometimes when I finish a novel. I did eventually feel better.
Mr. Assassin walked with me again. He’s a big walker, though, and now that he’s being less stuffy about being Paid Attention To and just hanging out, he’s been showing up more often.
I figured out something about a romance trope that I was completely missing (enemies to lovers); I hadn’t realized that a lot of the office romance comics I follow use that trope. People who don’t get along at first doesn’t strike me as “enemies” as such, just a personality conflict. I tossed a couple of ideas at Mr. Assassin to write later and he approved. I don’t think I’ll be able to pull off an office romance, which is mostly comedy, though. There’s a writer who does this romance/sci-fi/mindfuck series that I like (“It Was All You”) and have been jealous of lately. Maybe something like that. There will probably be an AI involved.
One of the non-main characters, Connor (I’m not sure if he needs a nickname so nobody thinks I’m referring to a real person?), to tell me something perfectly valid about someone, but blacker than hell. I like Connor and he’s super smart (to the point where I worry about writing about him because he’s so much smarter than I am). He just has a Vantablack-level outlook on life. I considered what he had to say and felt like shit for a bit at the possibility he was right. I woke up this morning and decided that while what he had to say was valid–and the possibility was certainly there–it was probably my trauma and/or his depression talking. I *do* need to be more willing to protect myself, though, so I’ll keep an eye on things.
The writing this morning, until about 2, was the rest of the second pass on that last, complex scene. I’m still not positive I’m in love with the last line, but the rest of it very much pleases me. The Goob (the POV character) was also happy with it and proud of navigating the situation. It was 100% something that would have fried his brain and left him curled up in a ball before this. Good job Goob. Good job me, and good job to my wetware/gray matter, which often feels like it’s insufficient to run something this complex.
Onward!