Things seemed so easy. Just zip through the ending that I'd already  
mapped out, nail a few scenes, drop some exclamation points, throw in  
some gratuitous nudity and I'd be finished. Or finished with this  
draft until my advisor skewered it (in a constructive way!) at least.  
But it turns out that life isn't always the easy road that they make  
it out to be on the first season of Lost.  So instead of just  
plodding forward happily, I started to re-read my book from the  
beginning. And then I started to freak out. It seems, not enough was  
happening to my characters. Sh*t needed to go down in a much more  
intense and forceful manner. People needed to be put in awkward  
positions. Choices needed to be made. Adverbs toned down. Exclamation  
points undropped.

In lieu of completely losing my mind, I decided to semi-rationally  
read through the book again with a pen and a pad and take note of the  
places that needed some more conflict, where things needed to be  
ramped up, toned down, or excused from existing. This took an entire  
day, but it had the end result of making me much more confident about  
the state of my book (almost readable!) while staving off any desire  
to self-medicate.

And now I feel the need to do those things before I turn in this  
draft. Which might take a few more days. Yes, this could make my  
advisor curse the day that I forced her to sign an exclusive advisor  
for life contract, but at least she didn't actually prick her finger  
and stamp the contract with blood, like I'd asked. And if this draft  
is better, then my next draft will be better, which means I will have  
to spend less time on the back end making the excuses that i'm trying  
to make right now, which will no doubt improve relations with the PR  
firm hired to promote my work. And that, friends, is how you publish  
a book!!!

Class dismissed.

Kidding.

On to more general topics: (several of) the people have spoken and  
it's generally agreed that I am lazy and need to step up my blog  
game. With that said, I will now be posting at least twice a week,  
usually Mondays and Thursdays. At least one of these posts per week  
will be of choice quality. The other will be, like, pretty good.

Enjoy the remnants of the week and the weekend. My friend Frank is  
coming into town, utilizing his spring break from law school in balmy  
Virginia to spend some time in the winter wonderland of Boston.  
Obviously, he didn't think this through.

And PS- I'm planning on milking the songs of 1998 for all they're worth.

Pretty Fly,
(For A White Guy)

The Offspring