Week Two: The Chocolate Solution

Typical IM session....


Sherry: ...see what I do to myself? LOLOL.
Laura: Hiding under desk from dry erase boards, flow charts and diagrams.
Sherry: *dragging dry erase boards, flow charts and diagrams into the center of the room..*
Laura: Throwing spitballs at Sherry's dry erase boards, et al...
Sherry: Mebbe they will tell me in a few. See? Pantstering.
Laura: LOL. Yeah, nice try, Jones. Not buyin' it.

Minutes later, after I’ve IM’d a bit of my WIP to Sherry:

Sherry: You just need to expand it and toss in some motivation.
Laura: Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. Right now, they are all motivated to bop like bunnies.

Gee, don’t understand why she snorted at that last line. Am muchly confuzzled by that. You mean to tell me that “wanna engage in a bunch o’ boinking” isn’t sufficient motivation to carry off the entire novel?

Who knew?

Jones did, apparently, for she immediately found a tiny blank space on her dry erase board and began diagraming how I should go about finding the motivation. Now, it’s not that I don’t appreciate her help (to the contrary, I don’t honestly know how I’d write without her)...but sheesh! I was in shock she’d managed to find a free area (tiny) on her dry erase board.

After I picked myself up off the floor (where I’d fallen off my chair— the shock you doncha know— ), Sherry IM’d, “Just reading all this, and I’m wondering how this all works for us.”

My brilliantly pithy response? “Don’t question it... It just does.”

Which of course, has the wheels turning for both of us now. Just HOW do we take our divergent writing styles and mesh so beautifully? We’ll have to ponder upon this later. Right now, we have other issues to address.

Here we are, addressing conflict and motivation in our WIPS (Sherry is wrestling with conflict today, I’m wrestling with motivation)... and clearly, neither of us has a goal in mind. (Yeah, ya’d think that Ms. Flow-Chart would have that written down somewhere, wouldn’t ya? Another shocker for the day...)

So, off we go, calling, “Here GMC, GMC, GMC! Good, GMC! I have some chocolate for you!”

Now, don’t worry. We always manage to work out our issues— the benefits of having a writing partner, IMHO— and a large supply of chocolate. This is what makes this journey so fun and productive for us both: two heads are always better than one, and having a pal along for the ride to share the giggles (and woes) with makes it Worth The Trip.


Sherry: So, Laura…. I have this lil problem. I’m on the verge of breaking open one of the big conflict issues in the book, but I’m going to need another “bear” to chunk into the canoe. No, no… come out from under your desk. This won’t take long. Let me just get out my dry erase board and flow charts. Seen my markers? Oh, well, doesn’t matter. I have post-it notes around here somewhere…

Later, waving a white flag over the top of her dry erase board to halt the onslaught of Laura-thrown spitballs…

Me: So, maybe the characters will just tell what the new conflict is in a few. See? I’m panstering.

Laura: I’m not buying it, Jones….

Actually, I’m not buying it either. I'm looking at my conflict issue and she’s looking at her motivation and it's all tied up in the GOAL we clearly don't have a handle on.

This is clearly going to require more chocolate to get to a solution.

Later in a chocolate haze…

So far we’ve not resolved our issues from above. It’s okay though. Oh, we'll get to where we need to be. We always do. The smoke from my dry erase markers will dissipate and Laura will catch her breath from haring after GMC and the whole thing will sort itself out. After we've laughed ourselves silly and hidden all the chocolate wrappers under our mouse pads. Whatever our system is, (if we ever figger it out) it works for us. And the best part is that we always have fun. And a never-ending supply of post-it notes.

Hmmm, either I have indigestion from all the chocolate, or I feel a solution coming on. Anyone seen my markers?