The Maker of the Treats!

The other night I took my PYRAMID of RICE KRISPIES TReATS to the Scout Court of Honor, and one of the boys said, "Wow, Sister Griffith. Are you the Maker of the Treats?"

Why, yes. Yes, I am. In fact, I'd really like a t-shirt that says this.

I'm still plugging away at my edits. Just a couple dozen pages to go! I can almost smell the cake I'm going to make for myself when I'm done. Mmm. Chocolate. The recipe from the side of the Hershey's Cocoa can, with the frosting recipe from it, too. (That delicious frosting has officially turned me into a Frosting Snob. I can never again appreciate a canned frosting.)

The Cake of My Editing Accomplishment Dreams

Of course, naturally I'll only be eating ONE BITE of this delicious cake, since I'm not eating sugar anymore. Well, not very much sugar, anyhow.

When I was 19 I worked in the Pepperidge Farm Cookie Factory for a summer. Perhaps I've mentioned this before. Well, the point of it was to earn money to spend on a trip to Europe with my roommates. I spent a lot of my time there looking like Lucille Ball in the candy factory, and probably cost the company more money than I made for them. It was a bit of a disaster. However, my sweet Dad put a poster on my wall: "As you work, think 'Eur-ope, Eur-ope, Eur-ope, Yurrr-up!'" It really helped.

Then the trip was the incentive for the cookie work. Now, the cake is the incentive for the writing work.

I work well with incentives.

Candy Celebration

Finished it! I have written it and read it aloud and edited it and gone back over it three times and now farmed it out to great friends who have agreed to critique it.

I can't believe I've finally gotten a novel to a point where it can be farmed out for critique. It has been FOUR (count 'em) FOUR years since I got anything this near to completion. Huh, could the reason for that be it coincides with the time we started getting high speed internet and therefore television again after 15 years without it? Hmm. That will require greater investigation. It also coincides with the birth of my fifth child. And the time I started homeschooling.  And the general breakdown of all order in the home for about a 2 1/2 year period. (Follow this link to read my award-winning essay on this baaaaaad time in mommydom.)

So, yeah. No real guilt there. But still. It's a long process. From idea stage to first draft, to second, third, fourth, fifth and final drafts, it has been a long road. The story has morphed over time. I tried to follow the outline of "how to write a commercial fiction book" found in James Scott Bell's great book often mentioned earlier on this blog, Plot and Structure.

This meant I had to go back and redo scene after scene to crank up the conflict. I had to go back and cut out characters whose roles changed. I had to redo whole subplots from time to time. It was a living work. Ever changing.

I know that once my dear and good friends who are SO KIND to read the manuscript and give feedback send it back to me, I'll need to go over it again and re-adjust quite a few things.  That's okay. The whole experience has been an exercise, one to teach myself to write something that will fit the genre of commercial fiction. No, as one online friend says, it won't win any Pulitzer Prizes. Who cares? Not me. I don't have enough angst for that in my life. But if it creates a good, diverting few hours and informs them on a new topic, great. Mission accomplished.

Yay!

I think I need to celebrate.

Candy is in order. What should it be? Well, so far it's been a hot fudge sundae from McDonalds, mini-Twix candy bars, mini-Snickers candy bars, mini-KitKat candy bars, (all the mini candy bars were left over from a Cub Scout Pinewood Derby prize pile), a Square Shooter hot cinnamon lollipop, a few fruit snacks, a handful of gummy bears. But these seem inadequate for the magnitude of the 18 month long effort, don't they? I should really go for the gold. I should head over to Walgreens and pick up a package of Toblerone or Toffifay or Boston Baked Beans. Yeah. Those would scream "celebration!" Or ... Peanut Butter M&Ms. Yeah, that would be fantastic. Or good old Mr. Goodbar. Even a Big Cherry--my tastes include the exotic and even the shunned-by-others-of-narrower-candy-palates. Now, a Big Cherry? That's more than your everyday, run of the mill, candy I had at home anyway. It would be a celebration. I'm taking suggestions!

Pink Floyd Song

Today I am trying to get myself past the wall.

Distance runners call a certain point in their marathons "hitting the wall." It's the point where they feel like they can't even put one foot in front of the other. A friend of mine ran her first marathon a year or so ago. She said when she got to that point she was on a slope, the hill seeming too steep to even consider continuing along. She was crying and shaking and convinced she needed to quit. A stronger runner (her husband's sister) slowed down and came up alongside her and helped her keep moving. The encouragement and the strength of her sister in law helped her push through the wall, and my friend continued and even finished the race.

For the past couple of years I have been immersed in family concerns. First and foremost in my life I'm a mother and a wife. I love to write, but I have to always keep in mind it's not my true legacy in life. When you write fluff like cotton candy, you have to be realistic and self-aware that way.

That has made seeing a novel through to completion ... let's say, difficult. Coming up with the concept, throwing down 175 pages or so, getting through to the beginning of the third act when all the forces of the plot need to converge on the main character, that's the fun part for me. But the beginning of the third act of any novel I write seems to be my "wall."

At the beginning of 2010 I set myself a New Year's Resolution. This year I would get past the wall. I would finish the novel I'm working on, I would go past the 3/4 mark and tie up the loose story lines, I'd let the hero and/or heroine get their just desserts, I'd give the villain what he or she had coming. I'd let my story people get their happily ever after.

It's just mean to them not to finish.

So today, I sent my kiddos in the other room and asked them to please play--because today I am finishing up the final chapter of this novel. I am. I WILL. Having this goal for myself and remembering it, referring to it, is kind of like the friend I needed along the way--to encourage me to keep plodding. That, and writers from my awesome writing group ANWA who give me feedback and encouragement along the way. My husband helps too. Bless him.

This novel may not be a masterpiece. I am writing it to teach myself several skills--what better place to practice them? However, finishing the story for me is going to be a big accomplishment and a great big feeling.

And then, I'm going to take myself down to the little grocery store and buy myself a bag of red licorice laces. Because a sweet feeling just gets sweeter with candy in hand.