I’m worried that this post will lurch dangerously into fanboy territory…forgive me if it does! (And I’ll meet you at the next Armageddon LOL snort wheeze)
Cam and I have been re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yesterday we watched the finale of Season 2 and in one scene Spike (a vampire) overpowered his girlfriend Dru (another vampire) by putting her into a headlock until she was unconscious. As you do to your nearest and dearest (hey Buffy sends her boyfriend Angel to a hell dimension in the same episode so who am I to judge?).
Perhaps I wouldn’t have noticed if we hadn’t watched both seasons over the past couple of weeks…but the scene stood out to me because it broke the rules of its world.
The season 1 finale Buffy is “dead” and needs CPR. Angel cannot perform CPR because he is a vampire and doesn’t have breath.Vampires don’t have breath because they’re dead. Fair enough – so you just can’t choke a vampire. Smack it on the head or something, but choking is kinda useless.
Moral of the story for me is that I need to be careful to observe the rules I create for my on worlds. That I need to be as fanatical about my own work as a fanboy.
Sometimes I’ll leave holes in my work because I don’t know how to fix it, or I hope that no one will see them (particularly if I put an explosion right next to it!) But they always do.
Today I have printed out the rough chapter mash ups of my novel and I’ll spend November fixing those holes (caverns!). I’ll be reading through to see if it makes sense and to see if I’ve lost anything from the cuts I’ve made. This morning I felt kind of anxious that I won’t get much done in November. I know that is a self imposed deadline, but I really want to take it seriously.
Already though, there’s a small part of my brain that’s saying “Well, if you don’t get it finished in November you still have plenty of time.” Which is true, but also a little self defeatist.
I also had a sneaking worry that I didn’t have enough pages – until I printed it out this morning! I haven’t counted them but it looks just over half the size of my last draft. And some of the “chapters” I printed were a couple of lines like “Mae’s manuscript” or “January’s flat”.
Yesterday I finished reading an autobiography of a woman with Asperger’s. I skipped over a lot of detail and then it occurred to me that the form of her work characterises the condition – attention to detail that others don’t see…Or perhaps it is a condition of self publishing!
I’m not sure if January does have Asperger’s – at least not in the same way as this woman. Even if she does I know for sure that there will be no dialogue (inner or real) that satrts with “As a woman with Aspergers..”
Actually as I was watching Bones last night I thought that January is more like Temperance – socially awkward but charming. Maybe I should read the novels and see how Kathy Reichs does it.
OK there’s sunshine to enjoy! Then back to the mines for me…
Tauken 