WIP Wednesday: Week 26+27+28

Pahaha . . . it's been a while since we've had one of these posts. Oops.

Days Worked On: I was doing good, then my mother visited and I didn't do anything for a week, and then I was doing good again. *shrug*
Morale: GOOD?!
Total Word Count: 96,213 (that's right, -4,614 from whenever ago) . . . and most of this was actually done in one week of breakthrough awesome

What I Worked On: Chapter 8. But you know what? It wasn't horrible.

Thoughts: I've talked about how I like to marinate on my writing. Or, at least, I think I have . . . I can't actually find a post on it . . . which I probably a sign that I should just write another one. Or a first one?

Anyway, thinking about writing. I like to know exactly what I'm doing before I'm doing it, which has gained me a bit of a reputation of being able to sit down and just spit out 5,000 words. Unfortunately, if I haven't thought out what I'm doing, I end up staring at my computer screen like everyone else and ripping my hair out.

There is also another major issue with this process: over thinking. Which, holy crap, is my kryptonite of editing. Seriously. I talk to one of my lovely CPs for 45 minutes and she fixes everything in 5 minutes.

So yeah. Chapter 8. Still a little like pulling teeth. But at least I'm not re-writing the opening scene again and again and again anymore (seriously, how did you think I got rid of 4,000+ words so quickly).

Random Quote of the Week:

"I'm fine," Eva said, plopping to the ground and folding her good leg beneath her. "All that sitting was getting boring anyway."

She'd washed the last of the grease from her hair, which shone a soft, butter yellow, and new freckles spotted across the bridge of her nose like pale flecks of amber.

Freaky Friday Blogfest

Today is Friday the 13th. Horrible, wonderful, hilarious things are known to happen on this day. Because it is magical. Or something. And this Friday the 13th is no slouch, as Kat Brauer over at The Flighty Temptress is hosting the Freaky Friday Blogfest! Because I find it terribly amusing, I am participating.

All we're doing is posting 500 words worth of old, unpublished work for critique. That's right, you're allowed to shamelessly mock critique the excerpt posted below. But it's really okay, because, it's hilariously bad. Really. My excerpt comes from the story that spawned the "Yikes-o-wowie!" line. Anyway, the blogfest runs until the end of May 15th, so hopefully a bunch of other people will participate and we can all giggle at our old, decrepit writing together!

So, onto my excerpt. It's from the first original story I wrote back in 2000. Entitled Rowin Warriors: The War, it took place in the future and was about kids in the military and they saved the universe . . . or something like that? Totally middle grade. There were also aliens and magical fighting powers and people who flirted through arguments. Yeah. I was 12. It didn't have to make sense.

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Chapter One: Potatoes
POV: Kat
I opened my eyes as I yawned. A big yawn to be precise. I was tired. Now who wouldn't be tired after a meeting at twelve o'clock, midnight, extending to two o'clock, in the morning? A stupid meeting . . . oh dear, I snapped awake. I looked at the clock; it said 7:32. TGINL: Thank Goodness I'm Not Late. Then I saw the paper next to my clock. It said:

KAT

Read this paper

Change clock tonight

DO NOT FORGET

THE COMMANDER WILL SHOOT YOU AND THEN EAT YOU FOR HIS DINNER WITH A PETITE FORK IF YOU FORGET TO LOOK AT THIS LITTLE PAPER

I sat there blinking for a couple seconds, trying to comprehend what I had just read. Now you got to understand this, it’s not easy to assimilate things when you had, oh, two hours of sleep. Snap. Crackle. Pop.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!" I yelled as I jumped out of the hammock. But failed. Instead of getting out of the hammock, I flipped it over and landed on my head, on the ground, in the dirt. So then I attempted to get up, but my foot got caught in the hammock, so as I held onto my bruised head, screaming, I fell again. So by the third time I had actually gotten out of the stupid hammock, but as I held my head in agony, something crawled over my hands. To be more precise, something with eight legs that eats bugs.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!” I yelled again, and swatted at my head, and a big black spider dropped out of my brown and highlighted green hair. Now let me describe what make this arachnid scary. It was a giant black spider. A really, really big black spider. I am talking huge, gigantic, large black spider that was on my head. The freaking thing was as big as my hand! So, in a somewhat calm mood, I grabbed a comic book belonging to who knows, and smashed the monster spider screaming something similar to the words die, death, and get away.

So that matter was taken care of, now to the big problem.

“Bad morning. Really bad morning. Why can’t it be Friday?” I moaned. I was late for the Commander’s stupid talk that was supposed to take place at 8:00, in the morning, and a monster spider just tried to kill me. In other words, I’m seriously flirting with death.

To tell the truth, I could have gotten up on time, but I didn't look at the paper and I didn't change my clock. When I looked at my clock earlier it had said it was 7:00, so I believed it. It had been Daylight Savings yesterday and I didn’t bother to change my clock, so the alarm was wrong too. That was a little over half an hour ago and clock now said 7:43. But it's really 8:43, correction; it's now 8:44, or if you prefer, 7:44.

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Please don't judge me. *cringe*

But yeah. It took 2500 more words for Kat to get to her meeting. 2500 WORDS. But that's why this is a Friday the 13th Blogfest, right? It's all about horrible, wonderful, hilarious things. Oh, and if you're wondering about the chapter title, Kat totally gets KP duty.

Anyway, feel free to give my 12-year-old self a critique. I remember being particularly proud of this opening at the time, even though now it makes my eyes bleed. Tell me your thoughts in the comments (and then go participate with your own post because I want to laugh at your stuff too)!