Commit log #86

I only have me to blame for screwing up the past 24 hours.

I was probably on the edge of a breakdown anyways, I just—when I should have known better—pushed myself over it, by overreacting to a small thing. I ended up needing my bartender to talk me off the ledge. I’m going to be seeing him next week, which kind of screws over any trip possibilities, but that’s ok, I’m not certain I can deal with anything right now.

I’m confused and heartsick and I don’t know what life means anymore.

Three good things.

1. Mark Watches Puella Magi Madoka Magica has great comment threads. You can’t always say that about a post on the interwebs.

2. Tiny Panasonic on/off rice cooker arrived to make me hot cereal in the morning (or at least, next morning). It can also travel. Not that I’m going to be traveling any time soon.

3. The Cinderella Deal isn’t as good a Crusie book as her later ones like Bet Me and Welcome To Temptation and Faking It and Fast Women. I can pick out some of the reasons for this, which makes me excited, because it means I’m learning.

– The biggest reason thus far I can figure for the book not reaching greatness is the lack of a cohesive plot line. It’s more a peaceful slice-of-life book, which isn’t bad, but isn’t as riveting or dramatic as the others. I’m not saying bodies and adventure and crime is needed; for instance, Bet Me is also slice-of-life, but more interesting.

– The story is also one-dimensional: it’s only got one plot thread, dealing with the relationship, instead of having multiple plot threads that allow for greater character and plot development beyond the relationship travails—there could easily have been at least a few dealing with the development of Daisy’s presence in the town of Prescott.

– The secondary characters aren’t as well-developed, and kind of blah, even Daisy’s friend, a disappointment when there are so many more vibrant friend characters in Crusie’s later books.

Well. Just because I can point these out doesn’t mean I know what to do to fix them. I can see these problems in my own current work, which makes me sigh, but I can only keep on writing.

I’m thinking of doing NaNoWriMo too….

4 thoughts on “Commit log #86”

  2. The thing I noticed as a flaw in Cinderella Deal is the pacing: about two-thirds of the action take place in the last third of the book. When I got the audio edition, on five CDs, I expected the flu to be on disc 4 and the dinner party early on disc 3.

    I felt Crusie did a really good job with the flu plotline, showing flu as a dramatically dangerous thing that made Daisy and Lance fear for each other’s life. This especially stood out to me because I live in the Northeast, where we tend to regard flu as ‘cold with extra misery’, not anything to get seriously alarmed about.

Comments are closed.