Yesterday I spent all my writing time working on an essay, and got a first draft done. Will go back and rewrite it at some point.

Today, worked on former GN. Am still working on it--and something feels wrong, so I may have to chunk most of what I've done today. It feels...boring. This is in the course of trying to get those disparate sequences working together in some kind of decent order.

Thinking about it further, this isn't a story about taking steps or making choices--at least not for most of the ms. It's about events that lie beyond the MC's control and how they close in on her. But that's the opposite of what makes a book move, of what makes it grab the reader; usually the MC is presented with a goal and stumbling blocks, and then makes choice after choice after choice.

So maybe none of this will work. Or maybe it's just a matter of presentation. No idea.

Anyway, now I'm dimly remembering I have this problem pretty often--a character whose "goal" is negative. In Night Road, for example, Cole wanted not to have to lug Gordo around, and now I remember I whined about that for months if not years. And now that I'm remembering NR, I'm also remembering the whole inner/outer goal concept, where the MC's goal is one thing, and the reader's goal for the MC can be a completely different thing, and I'm thinking maybe I chew on this same issue all the time and whine about it and am sick of doing so--only I forgot because this is a different ms.

Whatever. I don't want to think logically right now, anyway. I want to write by gut. So p*ss on all that, and back to work till it's time to go see what's up with the Bounts this week on Bleach. I hope that soulreaper dude with the face tattoos gets some good onscreen time this episode.