Tonight, I'm turning that around and putting off outlining my final project in favor of posting a little something on the blog. Also, as I recently posted on Twitter, Hemmingway wrote 500 words per day. 500 words seems like hardly anything at all, and it makes me want to set a similar goal for myself. However, I got to wondering, where does this leave me for editing? Sometimes I'm doing a lot of cleanup work and might not make a net gain of 500 words even though I've written/revised that many. This is a quandary, but on the bright side, I opened up my manuscript tonight and noticed 1000 words had jumped in there somehow! I'm now up to 52,528. In case you were wondering, here's the latest addition (comments welcome):
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Claudia’s car felt warm under her back as Mariana stretched out across the trunk, settling her shoulders on the rear windshield and squinting at the clouds. A breeze swept through the treetops and she closed her eyes for a few seconds, drinking in the earthy scent of Fall.
“Mariana!” Claudia’s voice startled her back to the present.
“I’m right here—what?”
“Seriously? I said your name three times.” Claudia’s green eyes were fixed intently on hers, reflecting the smirk on her lips. “We have to go—we’re going to be late.”
Mariana sat up on the edge of the trunk and adjusted her shirt. John positioned himself between her knees and turned her chin up toward his face.
“See you tomorrow morning,” he said after a long kiss. His eyes seemed oddly soft and sentimental as he gazed down at her. Mariana saw Claudia look at the ground when he pulled her in for one last hug.
“Hey—you’re going to make us late.” She slipped out of his embrace, gave him a peck on the lips, and headed for the passenger door. Claudia broke from her gaze at the driveway, then tossed her keys in the air and caught them.
“Bye John!” she said as she got in the car beside Mariana.
“Later—thanks for the ride.”
Mariana glanced over at Claudia as she pulled out of John’s driveway, but her eyes were focused on the road ahead.
“Hey, do you want to pick out some music? That Rilo Kiley CD’s been in there for like a week straight.”
“Sure.” Mariana pulled a CD case from under her seat, unzipped it, and began paging through discs.
After a minute or two Claudia broke the silence.
“So what’s up with John?” Mariana’s heart leapt a little.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, he just—he just seems weird lately I guess.” Claudia lifted a hand to her hair and twisted a piece near the back of her head.
“How so?”
“I don’t know, I thought you would have noticed—that’s why I asked. I wanted to make sure things were alright with you guys.”
Mariana sighed and looked up from the CDs. Late-afternoon sun illuminated a cornfield to their right, gold husks set off against the purple sky.
“I mean, I guess he’s been a little weird ever since he got his early decision letter. He hasn’t talked to me much about it though.” She settled further down into the seat and rested her foot against the dash.
“Huh.” Claudia narrowed her eyes toward the road. Her hair was sticking out from where she’d twirled it a minute before. “What does that mean for you guys?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, like, what are you going to do when he leaves? You’re not looking at anything out there, right?” Mariana suddenly wished she could escape from the conversation, but she knew Claudia would keep pushing through it.
“No—I don’t know. We really haven’t talked about it that much. I tried to ask but he just said he wanted to enjoy the time we have for now—he said it’s depressing. He doesn’t want to think about it right now because it’s hardly even November yet.” She began paging through the CDs more intently until she hit U2’s Achtung Baby. Once Zoo Station came through the speakers, she turned the music up and let it carry them down the road.
Interesting. IIIIIIIIINteresting.
ReplyDeleteHey, just a thought. Seems like Mariana is making a habit of being late everywhere. Would you consider starting a scene where she has to go from point A to point B for some othe reason than a deadline which is about to expire?