There was actually less liver damage (and events fueled by liver damage) per-capita this year than in years past. I get the feeling that we’re starting to gel a bit better as a group and maybe we’re enjoying each other’s company more and relying on lowering communication barriers a little bit less. That’s really just idle speculation, we had a good week and that’s really all that counts.

And I will definitely keep that movie in mind. It has to be a million times better than the movie I saw yesterday, The Grey (do not, I repeat, do not subject yourself to it). Plus, it’s got Brad Pitt. Business lessons. Brad Pitt. Win-win.

It’s an amazingly good movie. I can easily recommend it to non-sports-movie people and sports-movie people alike. Probably not great for the “competition is evil, kumbaya” set, but if you go out and work for a living in the business world, it’s got some really great lessons. And it’s a good movie with great acting and really engages the viewer, so I really can’t recommend it enough.

I promise not to go see “The Grey” based solely on the review you facebooked and your comments to go with it.

So glad you enjoyed it! We love it here at our house, and I’m so glad someone else gave it a try!

I honestly have no idea how that happened…*whistles and looks away*

I wrote about my writing long enough that my brain hurt. I’ll finish up the editing post this coming weekend if not sooner. I just want to get some more chapters actually written first.

First off, we’re a friendly bunch and no-one judges the comments. I’ve written many a comment on a blog that I was horrified with after re-reading for basic spelling/grammar/english fails. No one here will hold that against you. It’s an online coffee-shop attitude, just chat, we’ll love you for you and not for your sparkling command of adjectives/adverbs/obscure uses of punctuation. We’ll certainly love you for those things too, so be whatever, we’re welcoming.

Anyhow, what I wanted to say is that yes there is editing needed but there are some gems here. I particularly like the bits about the Bible, the “I quit” note and the comment on her grandmother’s cause of death. I also like that you don’t hit us in the face with the song’s but give just a hint to them (“the radio was playing a driving guitar rhythm and a deep voice was singing about the girls in La Grange”).

Thanks. Music is a big thing to me and always seeps into my writing, but I try very hard not to make my writing ABOUT the music. If that makes any sense. Sort of. Anyway, I always love the feedback about specific lines that work, it helps me know what connects with people.

There was a previous comment asking why we would want to keep reading about this nothing person with a nothing life, asking you to hook us sooner. I kinda think the hook is that she’s nothing. I personally didn’t feel the need to be hooked sooner.

Thanks, I got that feedback a couple of times since commenting. The feedback is about perfectly split between “it’s fine” and “hook sooner” so I’ll take that into consideration when I rewrite this chapter.

And as far as it being more bitter than sweet… that’s not always a bad thing. Its like dark chocolate

This is definitely going for a more “dark chocolate” position. There are sweet moments, but life seems to be defined by the hills we climb after going down the valleys, and these characters are going to discover some deep places before they climb to brighter vistas.

That said, I could still write the hell out of some Muppet Fiction…

“She cranked the dial over and tried to find anything that wasn’t about the nation’s obsession with Watergate.”

or

“She cranked the dial over, trying to find anything else.” [I was born in 1981 and I caught the reference a mile away]

As you point out, it’s a draft, and I’m terribly guilty of adjective abuse in my drafts. The next post is my revision process, and you’ll see that your instincts were the same as mine in my edit. It’s obviously about Watergate and calling it out was unnecessary.

“Her home on the corner between the town hall and the county jail just happened to give her a wonderful view over everything that might be happening that was worth repeating in hushed tones to the women at the rotary or the beauty parlor.”

or

“Her house happened to sit between Town Hall and the county jail, and her porch had an excellent view of anything worth repeating in hushed tones at the beauty parlor.”

LOL, this is an example of a sentence doomed to die. There’s actually no county jail in Attalla, so I’ll be removing that reference anyway. Also, there’s a tragic error of motion in the next line that has to be fixed anyway, so the whole chunk is up for re-write.

Just a quick & dirty job, but it gets you down to basics. I find that if I don’t edit for needless words all along while I’m writing, I get really bound up and can’t remember what my intention was.

I like to dump a lot of adjectives into the draft so that when I edit (which is a code-word for trimming) I have enough fruit left on the tree.

So she’s going to Hollywood, is she? I hope she meets up with Kermit & the gang. Despite what you’ve said, I can’t help hoping it’s that kind of story instead.

Aww…I could totally do up a Muppets fan-fic with singing and dancing…

But sadly (pun intended) no, this one has some heavier themes. Hollywood may be her target, but I will simply give a hint and tell you it is not her destination. This is not a “make it big in the movies” story, though I could write the hell out of that with a smile.