New Year Thoughts, Presents, Rewrite, Conventions

[mmerriam]

I think the reason I have a hard time going into the New Year with a positive attitude is that I start every New Year:

1: Exhausted from the annual Christmas holidaze trip,
B: Sick from whatever disease I caught in Oklahoma, and
Thirdly: Stressed about the impending income tax season.

It would be nice if at least one of those would skip a year.

Bestest Christmas Present Evah: careswen registered me for a storytellers workshop.

I've hit a dead stop in the rewrite. I need a scene, or a similar scene, from the earlier drafts to happen, but the new draft, while stronger in all other ways, doesn't really support this scene, or a variation thereof. Once I figure out what to do about this, I should be able to slam the rest of the rewrite out in short order.

I saw the panel proposals for Minicon. Nothing really tripped my trigger. There are a couple of panels I wouldn't mind being on, but nothing jumped out at me. I might just sign up for a reading this year and leave it at that.

Comments

[silk-noir.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Cut one of the minor characters and see what happens.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

Always good advice, which is why this draft is the strongest yet. I've cut, killed, and combined my large cast into something manageable and sleek.

I have an idea about how to handle that problem. I was thinking too big earlier. I just need one thing from the scene to happen, and I'm pretty sure I can roll it into a scene I just finished.

And if it doesn't work, I'm no worse off.

[careswen.livejournal.com]

Let's discuss tonight over dinner! Maybe I can help.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

Works for me.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If you had Christmas dinner with us next year, the exhaustion from driving down to Apple Valley and back again would be a lot easier to recover from. I'm just sayin'.

[silk-noir.livejournal.com]

Listen to her, man.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

Staying home next year is being given serious discussion.

[eavanne.livejournal.com]

Yes, I throw in my support for this idea as well.
You could invite the extended family up to Minnesota - see if anyone actually expresses interest in making the trip.
It is their turn, after all.

And if they all say "no thanks", well, then you say "see ya next year!" and no one has any legitimate ground for guilt trips. (they'll try, though, they always try...)

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Color me confused about why you're stressing over taxes at all, much less now.

Then again, mine are already done.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

I've still got to pay my last set of estimated taxes this month, and then we always get hosed at tax time. The joy of being married with no kids and no large write-offs. Though becoming homeowners helped that a lot last year.