Music Sounds Better With You

I've pushed another bunch of pages through the editing machine (i.e. me, with my increasingly shabby-looking printout covered in scribbles perched on my knees with my laptop on the armrest).

It's going well.

In the words of an Oscar winner, I'd like to thank:

Mark Mancina
John Williams
Trevor Rabin
John Ottman
Michael Giacchino
Nellee Hooper

and... umm... Blue Oyster Cult for their part in tonight's progress. Remember how I wrote my most favourite scene of the book while hyped up on brand new music in my iPod? Well, I took a leaf out of my history book and loaded up some new tunes --primarily movie scores, my faves (no lyrics) -- when I got home from work to give me some fresh background tune-age.

And it worked! I've tackled more of my Weak Goal problem in tonight's editing and have seen a way to alter part of the heroine's emotional mindset so her motivation makes more sense. I'll go back and make those changes on my next read-through because I'm pretty keen on getting this round done.

I also think I've hit the nail on the head as to why the part I edited on Saturday felt so awful. Writing advice talks a lot about how to avoid the "sagging middle" of your book, where the action dips and it all gets a bit (unintentionally) dull. Well, I'm pretty sure my action stays on track, but I think I get a bit lacklustre with illustrating how the characters' goal progress is going in the middle section, which is why it suddenly seemed as if I had none!

So current mood regarding my book is:





(Yes, I just discovered Smiley Central...)