I've decided that I like middles

I adore Holly Lisle, because she has done just so much with her site (click here) to try to help and educate hopeful writers. I can't say how much I learned about writing and about the business from reading that site. I highly recommend it to everyone, regardless of your preferred genre. And this paragraph, from her article on "Middles," makes me laugh every time I think of it.

So here I am, right at the end of the middle, finally remembering all the things I intended to do at the beginning (but didn't do), with a bunch of tap-dancing clowns singing the Star-Spangled Banner and a dancing bear who refuses to eat the clowns (though I wish he would), and my fireworks are exploding in the wrong places and at the wrong times, and I'm on that tightrope that now consists almost entirely of Celtic and Gordian knots, but they're tied around my ankles so that if I cut them I fall and if I don't cut them I'm stuck.

Boy, do I hate middles.

I used to feel that way myself; I could get started, and wrap things up relatively well, but in the middle I'd lose direction and work in all sorts of things that I didn't need, that really didn't work with the plot, etc. (No dancing bears yet, though.) But with this current book, I have decided that I much prefer middles. I have struggled so much to get this damn thing going, but tonight I wrote over 3,300 words. Only twice since I started writing this have I met my goal of 2,200 words per night, and tonight was the second time. It just flows so much better for me when things start happening. All the introduction, set-up, etc. just kills me.

So I hate beginnings and Holly hates middles (*makes mental note to read one of Holly's books - they are fantasy and look quite intriguing*).

I am now feeling much better about my book than I have of late, despite being very far behind where I'd like to be.

I've decided that I'm going to print a couple copies of whatever I have written by the time Thanksgiving comes around and bring them with me to my father's and my mother's and see if I can't convince (read: coerce, threaten or blackmail) people into giving some sort of (even broad) feedback.

Now if only I could visit Germany and actually see the places I'm writing about.

Ha, right. Maybe with my first movie advance.