February, 8, 2023
Daily Diary, February, 8, 2023 Day 890:
I thought I would take a break before lunch to talk about pacing, because I have been messing around with one scene for two days, writing, rewriting, taking things out, putting things back in. And this morning, I realized the problem is pacing. This chapter needs to be providing an emotional climax for the story, while the next two chapters shift to the action climax. But I feel like I keep working up some tension, then I add some information that drains out all the excitement.
On my walk I came to two conclusions. One, that I needed to completely rearrange this chapter, putting the information that I do need to convey in one scene, then have a second scene that includes all the interpersonal communication that provides the tension and leads to the climax.
My second conclusion was that I wasn’t going to try to do that in the limited time before lunch, but instead start on the next chapter in the short section on the aftermath of the events of the night before. Which is what I’ve been doing, finally getting almost 400 words written in that scene.
So, now I’m taking a break to write this post, then after lunch (having no phone calls scheduled) I will go back and tackle trying to rewrite the previous chapter. And I am telling myself that whatever gets written today I am going to leave as “good enough” for now, with any additional changes coming in the editing process.
Meanwhile, the my eye still looks awful, but is actually less swollen and isn’t at all painful. So it is a matter of time and patience, and persistence in sticking to my hot compresses four times a day.
And I got my walk up to 50 minutes this morning. We are having a warming spell, probably a Santa Ana in that the mountains to the west are completely visible, which tends only to happen when the marine layer this blown out to sea. The high yesterday was 71, it isn’t supposed to get higher than 65 today, but locally it is already 68. Really quite lovely.
But now time for a hot compress, then lunch, and I hope that tomorrow I will have a good report on my success in getting the darn chapter done.
Oh, in my lovely long phone call with my best friend yesterday, crows hit our neighborhood, some of them landing in the tree right outside the window next to me. I got a good photo of some of them.
