Writing Wrongs

January 01, 2006

I hope everyone had a lovely New Year�s Eve/Day. We�re relaxing here, Andrew is a roller coaster tycoon and I�m getting a lot of: �Oh, my goodness! Mommy, someone just puked!� Still, his park has won awards for being the cleanest. Too bad we can�t say the same about his bedroom.

Kyra is lounging on the couch, playing with her Dora the Explorer magnetic doodle board. These things are the BEST. She could play with this for hours.

And of course, since I have some wonderful quiet time, I happen to be stuck, stuck, stuck. I�m now at the Desert Storm portion of the book. I have written a few scenes previously and have a brief sketches for others. What I can�t figure out is whether I�m stuck because Desert Storm doesn�t fit the story, or I simply don�t want to go there--again. Did it with India Charlie, not sure I want to do it here.

But if I remove it, the rest of the story doesn�t make sense. Tried that game of �what if� and was equally stalled. The war is important. The deployment is a major crisis and the breakup of the boys� club. But gosh, do I wish I could skip over it and start with Kit redeploying to Germany and attending Steve�s wedding.

The setup is Mark (in need of an assistant) chooses Kit over Steve and Vic to deploy with him, exposing some uncomfortable flaws in the other two boys (Steve is indecisive, Vic�s an alcoholic). There�s the whole male/female in combat thing going on. There�s the division of those who go and those who stay behind. The ramifications are felt not just with the deployment, but pretty much for the rest of the book.

So what do I do? Why can�t I write it? Uh, these are rhetorical questions. I don�t expect anyone out there to have answers to questions on a book I�m writing. But maybe if I toss it out there, the universe will take pity and send me a clue, or a scene. At this point, I�d take a paragraph.

In the meantime, I think there�s more puke to be cleaned up over by the Ferris wheel.

Charity Tahmaseb wrote at 2:43 p.m.

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