I just realized how crusty I sound about being pregnant.  It’s true I’m a monster but I do think the baby is an angel.  I suppose the baby’s stolen that part of me away for the time being (we’ll switch sides when it’s born), but deep beneath the nausea I’m okay with it.  I’m not on drugs or bedrest, and at this point I have no plans to give birth in a third-world country, so I have plenty to be grateful for.

And I got to hear the heartbeat last week.  It was beautiful.

After two weeks of stomach flu coursing through the family, many cases into the toilet… and through a roller coaster of hormonal imbalances due to necessary fasting while pregnant–they do NOT mix so don’t even try it… I finally, tentatively, began to find the voice for my MC, Hrizon.  (Slur “Horizon”.)

Her world, characters, and much of the plot line are worked out.  I’ve known her as a child and an adult for years.  I have scenes written and more in my head.  And I’ve been under this enormous mountain of a funk for like two years, that would not move its big backside off my mind.  Living in its crevice sucks.

My esteemed Writing in Depth teacher, Ginger, said that writer’s block comes not from an inability to write, but from the wrong thing getting written.  [Obligatory insert: "But this is my story!"]  So I’ve been exploring angles of attack, wondering if my plot was bad, if the characters weren’t developed enough, if my subconscious thought it was boring so why write it anyways.

Until ding! I just read Scott Westerfeld’s UGLIES, then PRETTIES (the library doesn’t have the next in yet, grr), and I figured with which tension Hrizon’s story really starts.  I think.  I think this is right.  When I reach up, my knuckles don’t get scraped.

I think I’m ready to start climbing the mountain and stick my pick in its crack.  I might fall to my grave when it shrugs its broad base, but at least I’m going somewhere.

Today’s formidable word count: 648.

Y: yummy
Z: zoo