Matthew S. Rotundo's Pixeltown

As discussed in our previous installment, I spent much of last week working on a road map for the ending of Apocalypse Pictures Presents.  I think I have it figured out now, at least in the broad strokes.  I think.

And I even managed a thousand new words, bringing Magic Meter over the 60K mark:

With new verbiage, of course, comes a new snippet:

They’d spent the last three hours hunting through the Hills, zigzagging in slow sweeps–the best way she could think of to hunt down Eddie McConnell.  They could cover more ground more quickly if they split up, but they had no map, and the Hills could be crawling with security.  If they ran into hostiles, they stood a better chance together.

As if this wasn’t fool’s errand enough.

The anger surged in her again, for perhaps the hundredth time.  And for the hundredth time, she pushed it back down.  It would just impair her effectiveness.  It was her father talking again.  Recognition made her hands shake with restrained rage.  She leaned against a tree, bowing her head and closing her eyes until it passed.

Write Club update:  Tier one rejection from Electric Literature–my first of the 2012.  My first in several months, actually.  I’d gone so long without receiving any kind of news on any of my stories that I was actually a little pleased to get it.

Oh, gawd.  Did I really just say that I was pleased to get a form rejection?  Proof positive that I’ve been at this for too long.  Shoot me now.

Response time:  Almost 10 months.

Time to see if this map actually leads anywhere . . .

Closed out 2011 with another 5K on Apocalypse Pictures Presents.  Magic Meter tells us where we stand:

I’ve clawed my way through most of that famously muddled middle and even gotten a glimpse or two of my ending . . . and still, I’m unsure where to go next.  I’ve decided that I’m just a tad fed up with this, and need to take steps to rectify it.  Drastic steps.  That’s right, folks:  it’s time once more for the muse and I to have a heart-to-heart.  And by the time we’re finished chatting, I will by gum have a roadmap for the rest of the way.  I plan to do this by mapping out where I’ve been.  The way forward is in that tangled mess behind me, I feel sure of it.  Past experience tells me that it’s probably something really obvious, something that will cause me to smack myself on the forehead for not having seen sooner.  Fine.  I’ll deal with the embarrassment.  And the bruised forehead.

I sense that this thing will come in closer to 80K.  That’s fine, too.  The original word count was a total guess, anyway.  And if I’m right, I only have about another month’s worth of work on the first draft.  Bonus!

Your first snippet of the new year:

He could see the Hollywood sign between breaks in the trees, still high above him, but closer than he’d ever been.  It seemed so dreamlike, being this near to it.  The sign drew his gaze and held it, as it often had during his time living on the Boulevard as a Rattlesnake.  An urge to head in that direction seized him.

Yes, that would be perfect.  Once he had accomplished his mission here, he would head for the sign and wait while Jimmie and the rest of the Mouseketeers rolled through Hollywood, and through the Hills, too.  It would all come tumbling down, and all the bastards who had tried to take everything away from him would beg for their lives, and Eddie would just laugh.  He would meet Jimmie again, this time as a hero, and be welcomed back among the ranks of the Mouseketeers, and the Hills would be his at last.

How stupid he had been, trying to pass as a Rattlesnake.  He’d always been a Mouseketeer.  He saw that now, even though Jimmie had skinned off his tattoo.  That didn’t matter anymore, he saw.  Being a Mouseketeer wasn’t about having some ink on your arm; you were born into it.  Hell, everyone was born into it, one way or the other.  You were either a Rattlesnake, thinking that you owned the goddamned world and could do whatever you wanted to everybody else–or you were born a Mouseketeer, forever shut out and put down . . . until the day came when you decided to strike back, to set the balance right.

He understood now the hard teaching of the Mouseketeers, why they had to be the way they were.  He understood now that he’d had to stray, in order to learn the error of his ways.  His disgrace and exile had been necessary, to bring him to this place with this purpose, to be the avenging angel for all who had been outcast by the big shots, the ones who made everyone dance on their strings.

No updates for Write Club.

Look for a year-end summation, coming soon.  Then I have to see a muse about a map . . .