Day 3

This morning Dave Farland told us some great stories about his experiences (all of them horrible) in Hollywood. Either he has the worst luck ever, or he spun a tale so well that we all bought it. I mean really, who can put the Chinese government, Russians, the Italian Mob, the CIA, an author and slave traders all in the same Hollywood story and make it sound real? Now I'm scared to death of anyone that comes out of California.

This afternoon, however, was actually productive. I've been writing, and doing well here at Death Camp, but today was (as they put it these days) epic. Two other girls and I took off to the library. I know, I know, the library? Really? Yes. We were going to go there to write instead of sitting in the hotel lobby. However, we got distracted. There was a white board and I sweet talked the librarians into lending us some colored markers.

One girl needs to either take her novel, which is written, and cut out 1/3 of it or add to it and make it a trilogy. The other girl has written the beginning of her novel, but she is still struggling with the plot and outline. I wrote round 1 but found that it doesn't work. So the three of us decided to try to plot each of our stories. Not every little thing, just the big points, in an attempt to figure out if things were going to work.

Wow. Can I say cool? First of all, having to explain my plot to these girls was good for me. I really do know it pretty well. I don't know why that surprised me, but it did. Second, I plotted not only my protagonist's story arc, but also the villain's. By the time we were finished with mine, I had a plot line! A real, working, not retarded, plot line.

We did this for each of us. Everyone was pleased with the results. So we went to the Neilson's and celebrated with a Frozen Custard. Yum! Then I came back to my hotel and spent a few hours blowing the outline apart into a sequence of events. It's not finished, but it's so much more than I had yesterday that it makes me feel like singing! But I only do that in the car with the windows rolled up. Maybe in the morning.

Nano update – 6231 words down!