4 AM Rambles

So, the first half of today (er, Saturday) was a bust. I woke up with a sinus headache. You know, the kind where your cheeks and the top of your teeth hurt? I have been assured that other friends have been experiencing the same thing all week. Thanks, weather! You’re the best! Anyway, you know what I accomplished by 6:30? I went grocery shopping, watched some TV, read some blogs, napped with the cat, and ate some cookie dough. Rockin’.

I did finish reading the latest Pretty Little Liars book, Wicked. Which is a super-fun, fast read. It’s the fifth in a series by Sara Shepard about four rich, stylish, terminally-insecure girls whose uberpopular best friend, Ali, disappeared in seventh grade. The girls, now juniors, all start receiving evil text messages from "A" threatening to spill their darkest secrets. Relationships, parents’ marriages, careers, and lives are upended when they don’t follow A’s orders. They think they’ve found Ali’s killer and discovered A’s identity, but then new mysteries pop up and the girls keep getting themselves in trouble. Spencer, Hanna, Emily, and Aria make terrible choices (I want to smack them sometimes. I mean, sleeping with your teacher? Never a good idea!) but they’re all pretty sympathetic. The narrative switches up each chapter, and I can never decide which girl is my favorite, which is a testament to how even and interesting the writing is. I am definitely sharing these books with my sister S. And I’ve got Rosaline hooked on them too.

Anyway. I woke up post-nap with my headache gone, and tonight was really fun. We went to see six ten-minute plays put on by Rorschach Theatre. Met up with friends for dinner first and ran into more grad school peeps there. The plays each revolved around a different St. Nicholas myth, and there was great revelry. In my unbiased opinion, Steve’s was definitely in the top two. Possibly the very best. The first two performances (at 7 and 9 p.m.) sold out. I’m so proud of him! He didn’t get paid or anything, but this is a professional theatre company, and it was a great opportunity to make some new connections and get his name out there. Hopefully it will lead to more opportunities.

And then I came home and wrote for five hours. After two non-writing days, I was starting to feel all itchy and restless. But I feel like I’m in a great revising groove. It’s flying. Tonight I did Chapter 12. I <3 Chapter 12! Molly’s hanging out with an adorable musician, acting bratty about her parents, and then she sneaks out and makes out with a boy and bonds with a new best friend. The makeout scene is pretty swoonworthy, I think. It’s not my favorite lustful scene in the book; that’s still coming up. But I am fond of it. I have also consulted a calendar and figured out that there are probably at least 12 writing days left before January. I have around 117 more pages to revise–I’m not totally clear on the page count because I anticipate scrapping my ending and completely rewriting it. I have deleted a few scenes that didn’t really work and need to write new material, so I may have a little more work than that. But my point is, I think I can do it. I think I can have the i-version, draft 3.5, finished by December 31. I’m so excited!