My “quick editing pass” on “Just a Game” is proving to be not so quick. Shocker! Nonetheless, I finished a read-through and rewrote the first scene. That’s worth a new Magic Meter, right?
Had a bit of a rough patch during the read-through, where I thought the story might be irreparably broken. Now, I normally run hot and cold on a piece at any given stage of the drafting process, but I rarely feel like it’s hopeless. And after all the work I’ve put into this one, I would have been pretty damned bummed to scrap it.
Fortunately, a few hours later, I hit upon an idea for a fix, so game on. Now, if I can just figure out a way to cut 1,000 words from this thing . . .
Oh, and I finally hit upon a new title: “Spectator Sport.” Trust me, it’s an improvement.
A snippet for ya:
“So there really is a curse, then? And you can break it?”
She gave a knowing smile. “Oh, I suppose I could. I’m the one that did the cursing, after all.”
“Why would you do something like that?”
She stood again, towering over him. “I guess I was wrong about you. I thought you had a lot of nerve, but it turns out you’re even more of a rookie than I thought. Your dad had more smarts than you, and he wasn’t exactly what I’d call brilliant.”
Write Club update: Tier one bounce from Apex. Response time, 16 days.
I’m out.