I Killed The Thing...

Well, not killed it, so much as moved to a new version. I spent several days at Easter staring at the first page, wondering why i hated it so much. (The Thing is my work-in-fitful-progress.)

I loved it when i mapped out the plot and began, i still liked the plot, but six months later, it felt like i was trying to re-animate a corpse. Was this one of those times when i’d feel better about it, if i just put The Thing away for a few days (or a week, or a month, or six months)? Or was it honestly crap?

Then it came to me. I hated the main character. Detested him. He wasn’t easy to write, (everyone else i could relate to, but not him). I didn’t get what motivated him, in fact, very little did. I never made it inside his head. Despite killing several of his family and friends, he never showed any real emotion. I gave him kinky sex, made him think he was gay, but nothing made any impact.

Six months into The Thing, i had to make a decision. So that’s what i did over Easter. Then, i decided that the basic plot was fine, it was HIM. Somehow, he’d turned into a ponce. Gay, even effeminate i could deal with. Cross dressing, yep, no worries. But he was a boring little fart. I tried killing his father, crippling his mother, abandoning him, making him king too young, but nothing had any impact.

So, there was only one thing to do. It was Easter Sunday. I started again. I now have a new Thing. Son of Thing. Zombie Thing. Thing Mark II. It’s great. I’m enjoying it, he’s a real boy! The plot’s the same, so it’s easy, there’s bits of the old one i can reuse. Well, so far, one bit, a one-line joke from a character.

****

That’s where i’m at. Hope you’re well. Along with my trials with The Thing and its Children, I’ve had the most traumatic severance from my Twitter fix, after Mr Whatsit went mad looking at camping videos online.

Yeah, i know, most people blow their downloads on porn. He’s weird. The main culprit was the Teardrop Camper, a tiny caravan. (This pic’s on the Aussie site for them – click pic for a look.)

Cute as, but Mr Whatsit watching the “How To Build Your Teardrop” vids on YouTube gave us a highest web traffic day EVER. We recently raised our download speed, with the resultant ability to watch vids we can’t afford to download.

Oh LOLZ, phone company, we didn’t see that coming. And the next upgrade costs $20 a month, of course. Just out of reach. I nearly strangled Mr for going over the limit. Without Twitter, being plugged into the news, and being able to look at cute pics, what would my life be?

God, that’s sad, eh? Seriously. I thought so, so tried out the old ‘cold kitteh’ cure. To my surprise, i didn’t die with no baby animals to look at. I did manage 7,000 words on The New Thing. Then the end of the billing month came. I could look at baby animals again.

Did i show you this already? Best baby hippo pic so far.

Squee! indeed.
Pic from the Daily Squee, click to visit.

Unless cute freaks you out.
But it’s not that bad, it’s not Hello Kitty kind of cute.

****

Meanwhile, i think a large part of The Thing’s problems are due to point of view. Telling the story from the viewpoint of a friend of the original person will make it even better.

Yes, it’s now “Friend of Thing“.

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