SO as you know I'm revising Hot Shot again. Six years, folks. I started it in the summer of 2000, when the CO fires were so bad. I've written more stuff in between, but have come back to it at the urging of editors and now my agent. Some things about it make it not too bad - I know the characters really well. Other things slip away, like all the research I did. I'll read through it and think, "How do I know that?" Or if a CP tells me to go into more detail about something, I'll know I KNEW it, but I've forgotten and I don't know where to find it (maybe I should start making footnotes or something, but I don't remember how to do THAT either.) Other problems are that, since I've worked on it so long, I can't see it in a different way. It's hard to change things because in my head it's always been that way. I've been using a lot of cold readers this time.

This latest round is changing the heroine's motivation to make it less category. This advice was given to me on March 17. It took me almost as week to figure out how to change it (I mean, it's been the same motivation for six years.)

I've done 100 pages of revisions in 2 days, and all I can think is that I'm ruining the book. I'm not making it better. All this new stuff is stuck willy-nilly in my story.

So last night, exhausted at 9:30, I crawled into bed and started thinking. A couple of years back, my friend Karen went to a workshop where they were talking about motivation and you have to keep asking yourself WHY to get to the character's motivation.

So I started doing that last night, and wow, do I like the results.

Peyton is on the fire to show she's a committed reporter.

WHY?

She's never been committed to a job before, and her husband was so committed to his job that he died for it.

WHY has she never been committed?

When things got tough in a job, she just quit.

WHY?

She's never been good at anything, and her parents were good at everything. Her mother is a surgeon, her dad is a dr (I've been working on this story for 6 years and never thought to think about what her parents did. They will probably never show up in the story, and I may make one mention of her mother the surgeon, but it's good to know!)

EDITED TO ADD: OMG, DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THIS IS???? PARENTAL APPROVAL!!!!! DANG, I DON'T LOVE IT NEARLY AS MUCH AS I DID THIS MORNING.

Soooo, when Gabe pokes at her about being a reporter, he's poking at her own doubts about herself.

See? (If that really sucks, don't tell me. I'm happy.)




HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my buddy JoAnn!!