For you loyal six readers of Carthage, I apologize for the lack of updates lately. My recent illness wore me out and all my spare energy has been going to Thanksgiving planning and trying to hit my daily word count for NaNo. It’s going well…ish. I mean, I’m on track to finish 50,000 words at the end of November, even though they’re 50,000 words of a ridiculous under-achieving romance novel. When I go back to re-read, I disdain my prose and much prefer the comments of my own snarky internal editor, which I add in bold type just after I write any particularly repellent paragraph.
An example: This is simply wretched. I don’t know what you think is happening here, but no one comes to a romance novel looking for an abstract meditation on the meaning of communal life. You picked this genre, so work inside its limitations. Putting a bow tie on a hog doesn’t make a prom date.
Helpfully, I added a second paragraph for my future self to read right after this one: Your prose is the hog. The thoughtful and therefore out-of-place paragraph is the bow tie.
Oh, the fun I do have. At least when I’m talking to my future self in a Word document, I’m not walking around the house talking to the toaster and stuff. I’ve spent a long and fairly lonely couple of weeks on sick-leave from my social life, and I’ve formed some important relationships with the inanimate objects that surround me. But tomorrow my family arrives and I can spend four days talking to real people! I am very excited. Although I hope I don’t waste all my A-material on real people and can save some of my inspiration for being mean to myself in print.
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