MONDAYS

Yeck. Bleck. Phooey. Mondays.

I'll bet a dollar to a donut that if someone drew a titre on me I'd have serious proof that I'm allergic to Mondays. Thank God I'm not on anybody's 9-5. I swear I'da been fired today.

Tired since the minute I opened my eyes but worked on my prologue today. I totally dismantled the original prologue as it was written in two parts, the POV of the protagonist and then the POV of his wife. Sort of like a "here's my version of the story," and "here's my version." I decided that 1) that's been done too many times before; 2) it doesn't clearly establish the theme; 3) it doesn't clearly establish the tone of the narrator. Thanks to American cinema, readers today are impatient. They want the skinny as soon as they can get it, myself included. When I'm in a bookstore, skimming, I read the first 2-5 pages. If I'm not hooked by then the book goes back on the shelf. I'm a very discriminating reader; I don't go in for real life stories turned fiction and I can smell a get rich quick writer from a mile away. You know the kind. The ones who take their life and put it on the page and just change the names. I don't go in for baby-mama-drama stories and I definately don't want to read anymore stories about four black women trying to get their groove back. I look (and strive for) good writing, where attention has been paid to craft, where patience has been applied, where good hard editing and revision has been done. So, even though I absolutely loved my original prologue and readers have felt the language was strong, it didn't serve the story.
So I guess you can say that I am indeed growing as a writer. There was a time that if I wrote it, it had to stay there. I'd fight you like Ike Turner if you tried to chip away my work. Now I realize that good writing is good editing, the ability to understand that it ain't personal--it's business. It's the business of delivering a good story. So if it doesn't serve the story in some positive, forward-moving, defining way then it's got to go.

What's this got to do with Mondays? Nothing I guess. Just an acknowledgement that Mondays are as good (or bad) as you make them.

On another note: what do you do when you're firmly planted somewhere but your heart is pulling you somewhere else? I'm jonesing for California. West Coast. Something different. Want to be near some water and above all else want to be someplace less conservative than here. I'm a nappy artist-mother-teacher-liberal ... what in the world am I doing here ??????

Be Well. Be love(d).
ANGEL