Sunday, March 20, 2011

Stuck and Handling It Poorly

It's spring break, and Central Illinois never fails in surprising me with how completely, utterly, unsalvageably boring it is. I guess this doesn't matter a whole lot, because the point of my spring break was to study for the LSAT and I'm doing that. It's probably better that I'm not distracted.

Unfortunately, it is nobody else's spring break. Therefore, the only person I am spending time with is myself, and I have reached the somewhat alarming conclusion that I am not that interesting of a person to spend time with. How sad is that; I mean, it's not like I can get rid of myself. I should probably learn to be more entertaining. This is what I have done in two days:

1) Taken 2 full-length LSAT practice tests.
2) Eaten all of the girl scout cookies and chocolate left in the snack cabinet.
3) Driven around town 5 times to kill time.
4) Renewed my scholarship money.
5) Went to the library.
6) Read. A lot.
7) Painted my nails. Twice. I now own Justin Bieber nail polish. Didn't know Justin Bieber has a nail polish collection? SURPRISE. Okay, seriously though, why would he market a product that he CAN'T USE? Unless manly nail polish is a new thing, idk. maybe I'm just not "with it" these days. Don't worry; I'm judging myself harder than you're judging me.
8) Overheard at least 3 groups of people initiate conversation with the question, "Have you heard that song Friday by Rebecca Black?"
9) Prevented myself from strangling said people, strangling myself, and bursting into laughter and/or tears.
10) I have actually watched this video over 15 times, just from being around people who are playing it, or being incredibly bored at 2 am.
11) Had a super awkward conversation with my mom about not becoming an alcoholic because "I have alcoholic tendencies in my genes." I don't know why this even came up. And sex. All my favorite things to converse about with my mother.*

What I haven't done is move forward with my manuscript because I'm stuck on this one scene, and I don't know how to move past it. I've re-plotted, re-written, and now I'm thinking about doing The One Thing I Never Do. Write out of order. Ugh, it grosses me out even considering it. I hate the idea of writing some scenes before others. I feel like the emotional continuity and character development won't be the same if I jump around. But I might never move on if I sit here and overanalyze the same moment over and over again.

Do you write out of order? If so, how do you go about doing it?

*"Did you see in the news that Obama went to Brazil? They like him in Brazil. That's where his father is from, right? Wait, you mean Brazil isn't in Africa?" -- MY MOTHER. God bless her soul.

GTFO, JBiebs. My fingernails feel violated.

4 comments:

  1. I've written out of order before, but only when I get stuck on a scene and I know what happens next. Sometimes it's easier to move backward.

    I didn't get anything done on my wip at all this weekend, even though I lots of time. My husband called me to ask me to look up a listing for a house that's for sale, and since then all I've been thinking is "House! House! House!". So it's been hard to concentrate on the wip.

    Also, that is really weird about the nail polish. It'd be like Selena Gomez endorsing Aqua Velva or something. Creepy.

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  2. That's a rather pretty light blue. I knew Biebs had a nail polish collection, but I have never seen it in Real Life. Where did you manage to find it? On the bright side, at least you didn't spend an embarrassing amount of money on ONE bottle of nail polish. I think I'm still reeling from that purchase.

    I'm sorry. I'm one of those people who has been spreading the annoyingly catchy FRIDAY to unsuspecting people. I can't help it. It's so...unbelievable. :P I don't even have the excuse of being bored and being on Spring Break (although my sister does and she's the one that showed me...)

    To answer your question, I used to write out of order, and I think I wrote a lot more then because I just wrote what I felt like. The problem is, then I never want to write the connecting scenes. So I write in order now to force myself to push through.

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  3. Tere - Like the creepy old woman I am, I love house hunting, hahah. The main problem with me skipping this scene is I don't know how this scene is going to affect what happens afterward.

    Krispy - That picture is just a random one I googled. The actual color I have is like a neon robin egg's blue. Also, don't feel bad. Friday is basically the new theme song of my life. Too bad today is Monday.

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  4. For one, don't be ashamed of the Justin Bieber polish. Nobody but you (well and everyone who reads this :P) knows that it's by him! And hey, maybe he made it for Selena Gomez? :D
    If you're still bored, go look up some Friday paradies. They're really great. :D
    And I write out of order occasionally. Mostly whenever I have a great idea for a scene that I don't want to forget that's later in the piece.

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