Off the Rail

Day 5 of the Writing Marathon
I'm tired. My eyeballs are bleeding, my beard is strangling me and my ass feels like ground beef. This writing stuff is hard. For those, who just tuned in: I'm in draft 4 of Aelemental Book 1: The Tree of Life, a young adult novel about finding oneself in this modern world of environmental, political and social upheaval. Oh, and it combines all fantasy subgenres and connects them in a logical and very original way.

But like I said... I'm tired. No, make that exhausted and I still have a ways to go.
My day so far:

• 6:00 Woke up to the chimes of my iPhone. Can anyone hate chimes more than I do now?
• 7:00 Kid is off to school. I crawl back in bed.
• 10:30 After a breakfast of champions (toast with PBJ/Nutella and some Chai tea with soymilk and honey) I groan. My old nemesis: the computer. I switch the beast on and position my protesting posterior onto the creaky seat. Was that seat always red or is it slowly draining my life fluids?
• 3:00 Man alive! Did I just work for 4 and a half hours straight? No wonder my knuckles feel like old wooden logs grinding the splinters off of each other. Breakfast of champions indeed! Time for lunch.
• 3:09 One super mango/banana smoothie with cinnamon later and I'm back in the seat.
• 3:35 Kid comes home. Needs some wrestling. We wrestle. He wins from his old man. Sweet, I've had my exercise for the day. If only I could put in some meditation time, but I'm not mindful enough to remember. I know there's a joke in there somewhere.
• 4:00 Finished Chapter 8: Simon and the Grim Council. Kind of proud of this particular chapter and not just because Nancy wrote the most number of 'Nice!'-s in the margins of the whole of draft 3 either. Thins just gel in this chapter. Simon is arrested and brought before the fairy tale council. Lots of drama and melodrama (which I excel at according to my wife) and some cool epic displays of over the top fantasy dialogue, decor and characters. Let's just say: this is not the Snow White you grew up with.
• 6:00 So tired. Writing this blog now, cuz I'm not sure I'll be back until tomorrow morning. Then again, I'll be shopping for Captain Underpants with Alex tomorrow (as promised), so maybe I should make the most of what time I have left tonight. We'll see. First dinner...

Here's some inspirational art I used from diTerlizzi to give me some ideas for the Council of Aelders, who pass sentence on poor Simon:

Planescape, art by Tony diTerlizzi -
I wanted a police force made up of red caped females.
Can you guess what fairy tale  character may be part of them?

Planescape, art by Tony diTerlizzi
The Council aides ended up being decisively non-human and
more in tune with which Aelder they served.

Planescape, art by Tony diTerlizzi
The Council of Aelders consist of the 5 most famous fairy tale characters,
the only snag? You have never before seen them like this.

Planescape, art by Tony diTerlizzi
The Verdant Sentinels are the woodsmen of the sotry: they patrol the forest perimeters
 and make sure humans don't discover the secret Domain.

• 11:00 Okay, so I'm back and did an extra few pages. Now time for bed.

About Suffering Artists, Story Balance and Flow
It's probably good that I'm tired - suffering artist burning the midnight oil and all that (okay it's only 11pm, but hey! I'm a parent for heaven's sake, I'm supposed to be in bed by 10!)  The tiredness allows me inside the skin of Simon. I'm actually writing a new chapter, that collects bits and pieces of when Simon has meltdowns. Like I said at one point (or maybe not, I can't remember) draft 4 is about making the story flow and keep it balanced. The emotions, action and information in draft 3 was too haphazard and it seemed random and not natural at all. Besides, Simon was angry all the time in the first 10 chapters and it's hard to sympathize with the lead character when he's barking at everybody all the time. So, I decided to tone it down, make him more sympathetic (aka bland) at the beginning, shell-shocked as his life is turned upside down (aka victim) and now tired, frustrated and angry as there are too many questions unanswered and he feels locked down by Fate (aka 3D). Which is really what he is being under house arrest in the fairy tale city. And what I am. Am I? No wait, that's the melodrama playing up again...

Au revoir.