…it’s probably because I’ve been writing. So here’s a quick update before I do today’s 1k:
I feel that the story is picking up momentum again, which is very good. Ever since that scene where Ian and Leila realized that they loved each other, things have kind of tapered down, but after this one creepy scene where Leila is put in a sort of trance and given a subconscious message to deliver to who-she-doesn’t-know (that was kind of cool too, though), I’m at this scene where Saeed confronts prince David, and almost gets killed. I had to stop it yesterday in the middle of the action in order to get some sleep, but I’m ready and anxious to write it now. Plus, I’ve got the rest of this chapter envisioned in my head, and I think I can get it all finished by Monday. Yay!
Thing is, I don’t know whether or not to actually kill this character. He’s not the main protagonist, but he is a major viewpoint character who goes through a transformation and plays a very important role at certain points. Should I kill him? If I do, will it make the story more powerful? What do you think–when do you kill your characters, and when do you let them live?
The other thing I have to say is actually kind of lame, but I want to mention it here because it’s really heavy on my mind. Basically, my good friend Steve from the capitol house tried to set me up on a blind date and I turned it down. Lame, I know, but here’s the story:
I was over at the capitol house yesterday, hanging out with the guys, and this commercial for Video Games Live comes on. Ben says “wow, Joe, this is just the kind of thing you like–you should go!” and Steve says “yeah! Joe, let’s go!”
I’m thinking about all of the things I have to do this weekend–including going to the temple, which I haven’t done in a long time–but Steve keeps saying “no, Joe, you should go!” And I think about how I’ve heard about this concert, how it’s really awesome, and how it would be really cool to go, but how the steep ticket price ultimately kept me from planning to go.
I’m the kind of guy who’s not good at making high risk, snap decisions. When I do decide on something, or when I believe something, I’m very firm about it, but when I’m undecided, it’s really hard for me to figure out what I’m going to do. Well, Steve eventually talks me into it (partially by putting me in a position where I can’t say no–if I do, my friends will just think I’m lame), and I figure that if Steve is going, it could be a really fun thing. So I say yes and he buys the tickets for the both of us.
Well, I’m thinking about this today–and thinking about how I’m swamped with school, writing, and life in general, and Steve calls me up and says “actually, Joe, I can’t go, but I talked with Mallory and Amanda (a couple of mutual friends), and they found this girl who wants to go.”
Now, I know I should be dating more, and I know that it’s important to get out of your comfort zone and take risks, etc–but when he said this I started to have some major misgivings about this whole thing. It wasn’t just that the idea of going on a blind date to a predominantly male oriented event made me feel a bit uneasy, it was a combination of many things.
First of all, I really am swamped with stuff to do. For school, I have to start research for two final papers (one of which is 3,500 words with a graded rough draft due April 4th), three dense academic articles to read (between 60 and 100 pages all told), about five or six hours of Arabic homework if I want to be caught up, readings for my New Testament and PLSC 375 classes, and for English 318 I plan on undertaking a major rewrite of the first 6,000 words of my novel. And that’s just school.
For writing, we have a quark writing group meeting on Saturday (which will probably take two hours, plus the time to read the stories), the rewrite I mentioned for English 318, and this chapter I’m writing right now, which I hope to finish before Monday.
More important than all of that, though, is the dinner Saturday night with my sisters and their fiance’s and the session at the temple that I was hoping to do on Friday. These are things that I’m not going to compromise on.
So, when I stack it all up like that and then consider what it means to go on this date, with someone I don’t know, to this event that is predominantly male oriented, up in Salt Lake which equals 90 minutes driving time plus a solid $10 of gas, to a concert that will probably last two or three hours, and subtract all that from what I need to do in the roughly 60 hours I have to do it in (plus fit in sleep somewhere), and suddenly this concert is not looking like the best use of my time.
However, the cost of that decision is being lame and standing everyone up. Which then affects reputation, which affects other things, etc etc…
But yeah. I took the lame path. I’m boring and less than a man because of it. A real man would do something crazy and go down in a blaze of glory (WARNING: that last link is extremely violent, I only put it in as an inside joke with Steve).
So, yeah. And now I’m going to stop blogging and actually try and accomplish something tonight.
