AFDOC Week 6

My granddaughter met another milestone this week, since - wonders never cease - it snowed in Mobile! A whole 1/4 inch stayed on our lawn for a couple of hours, just long enough for her to get a taste of snow as the flakes fell on her tongue and melted, just long enough to thoroughly confuse our six dogs {yes, six-five of which are rescues} and just long enough for us to scrape enough off our cars and make some snowballs to throw at each other. Other places in Alabama were lucky enough to get enough of the white magic to make snowmen, most of which were decorated with Roll Tide hats and scarves. And another milestone was met in our household this week. I got back on track with AFDOC, spending a minimum of four hours a day at the computer.


I made it through Chapter 9, incorporating comments from my critique buddies, rearranging scenes, writing new scenes, shortening others, and spending an inordinate amount of time changing backstories to present time, which, of course, required changing all the verbs and some of the tenses. The biggest surprise of the week, besides the amazing snow on the Gulf, was finding that I had two Chapter Twos. I was, and still am, completely bumfuzzled as to how I managed that after not only keeping a complete list of chapters with the word count of each in an Excel file, but hanging the chapters and their scenes all over my dining room. It was easy to fix, of course, but for an organization freak like me, it was off-putting, to say the least.


I also got all my throughlines charted and hung in my office to help me stay on track, which given the chapter challenge above, I hope was not a moot exercise. I had a word-of-prayer with my WA (writing angel for those of you playing catchup) and she agreed to help keep things in better order from now on. I'm really stoked to have so much revision done and somewhat overwhelmed at how much I'm changing on the pages and how much more I'm planning to change. And I also remembered with a jolt this week why I've been dragging my feet a bit getting started. I'm living inside this book every minute of every day. Taking notes last Monday night in the theology class I'm taking (my 5th month of a 12 month process) I found myself making notes in the margin about how well a certain Biblical reference and/or book and verse would complete scenes in the book. Caroline {pronounced with a long i} my protagonist. and her family have moved into my mind lock, stock, and barrel.


It's a little worrisome when, in a conversation, I try to remember where I heard something I felt was important only to realizie with a start that it's a scene I just wrote. That's just too weird to explain, so I gracefully exit from the conversation and don't try. Since AFDOC is set in 1958 - 1959, I'll be adding a picture to each weekly post from now on to get you in the Fifties Frame of Mind. Contact me if you know what this week's picture is. Mahala




Hint: This little plastic device brought us the sounds of Elvis and Sinatra.