So I’m officially 30. I’m kind of apathetic about that part. Hubby freaked out at 30, I guess because he felt like that was the threshold at which he was no longer a kid and had to grow up. I passed that threshold when I was 6 according to my mom, so 30, not a big deal.
It’s Monday and I’m not at work. The best gift I could have given myself–not having to deal with EDJ’s crazy boss on MY DAY. The plan is to spend the day uninterrupted and writing, with some time out on the Wii Fit to help make up for the ice cream cake over the weekend. Oh, the ice cream cake! So rich. So wonderful. So glad I only have one birthday a year. No way in hell am I approaching a scale for at least a week.
Anyway the final frontier I’m approaching has nothing to do with being 30. Rather, it has to do with the last major hurdle I have with my writing. The last thing that I don’t do as well as I should. And that’s emotionally connecting with my characters. It’s something I have a problem with. Some of it, no doubt, is just me. Some of it is my training, but I tend to maintain this objective, clinical view of them. When Pot asks me how a character feels at a certain point in the story, I tend to start spouting off “Well he/she probably feels [blah] because [insert something about their past or experience that sounds like a case study].” It’s not a simple, “She feels grief and a spirit breaking loneliness.” This is an issue Pot is definitely qualified to help me with as it is her strong suit.
I have this fear, I think, of sounding melodramatic. And as Pot pointed out yesterday when we discussed it, I probably will. But melodrama can be edited. Blank pages cannot.
With each book/story I’ve written and finished, I’ve overcome something. Tangental trips into fluffyverse. Actually FINISHING. Thinking out and understanding and executing a solid story structure. How to write action. Each piece has helped me to grow as a writer. So that’s my big focus on this next book. It is necessarily a very emotional one because of the circumstance I’ve set up, and this is a challenge I must rise to and overcome for the book to be the best it can be. I suspect it’s going to hurt.
4 thoughts on “30 And The Final Frontier”
Happy 30th. I haven’t yet worked out how I feel about that milestone in 5 months…
Happy birthday! 🙂
I’m a few years away from 30 and a few scenes from my own story finish line but I’m encouraged by reading about the progress you’ve made on FB. I only hope I can feel the same sense of accomplishment when I get there. Cheers!
Good luck, Kait. And Happy Birthday!
Growing is always painful, in some way. But it’s the most exquisite pain!
Happy Birthday Kait!
As a newly minted 30 year old myself, I’m starting to worry that I’m running out of time to find an agent. But I like your idea of focusing on one aspect of the craft and working on it much better!