I should be writing down some observations about Joplin Ren Fest before I forget everything that happened, because I learned some things about myself. Personal reflection and self-analysis is one of the major purposes of this journal, after all.

But you know, I just Xed out 5,479 words of fiction from my latest WIP. I'm writing what should be excitement and fun violence, and can't get it right.

I've landed in this crazy nadir of doubt: Why should anyone care what happens to this character? I can write stories that mean things, and I'm trying to make this character participate in MEANING and she just isn't helping. She's so much a non-entity, and I think I'm more talented than that - like I shouldn't be wasting my time settling for her. But a couple of the other characters are so alive, I want to write them and they infuse everything they do with meaning. This chick is merely what holds them all together.

It's driving me crazy. And I'm afraid I'll end up struggling with this until the whole thing resembles nothing but a pulpy mass of broken flesh and bones. With no hope of resurrection.

Cuz right now I have a narrator, not a character. A means to an end.

It didn't matter when I was writing the serial, because the entire purpose was to entertain. Bly was the stand in for the reader. But I can't let it end there. Yes, entertainment is the #1 reason to put a novel out into the world, but it has to, FOR ME, go beyond that. There has to be resonation. Or something. I don't even know anymore.

I don't like it here. I need.. something.

Nothing to do but keep writing. A word at a time. I'll get there.

So, Sunset Motel sounds like soft-core porn.

When you think about it in the context of the book, it fits, and there's a lot there. But would you pick it up in the bookstore? I didn't think so.

I'm having so much trouble. I know it doesn't matter much, because in the event of publication the title likely gets changed anyway. But since the novel is being eviscerated (in a delightfully colorful and bloody way), it's time for a title change.

I ran some options through a title generator and got some HI-larious suggestions.

Bloody Monsters of Blythe Sunsets
The Blythe Girl
The Inn of Bloody Monsters
Bloody Girl
Running Sunsets
Washing Monsters
Blythe Running
Running for Sunset

For straight fiction, I really like The Blythe Girl. But for this, not so much. I'm fond of Running Sunsets and Blythe Running. (I could do a whole series like that, in John Updike form.)

Hahaha! I should get serious about it.

The front door opened slowly.

Adel sat on the striped sofa in the living room, staring at the evening sky outside the single window. As it had gotten darker, Adel hadn't bothered turning on any lights.

She smelled sweat on Blythe; not just nervous sweating, either, but from running and from other girls. "How was practice?" Adel asked.

Though her back was to the entryway where her daughter had frozen in surprise, Adel could imagine Blythe's cold expression as she answered. "Peachy."

( Standing slowly, Adel turned to face Blythe over the sofa and about five feet of thin carpet. )

Adel was shaking by the time she jerked open the lobby doors and stormed into the Sunset Motel. She didn't acknowledge her husband, sitting behind the counter with his feet up, whittling at a chunk of discarded shingle, but dashed up the stairs. Their apartment was unlocked and Adel slammed the door back and stalked past the tiny kitchen and through the living room to her bedroom. She didn't bother turning on any lights, heading straight for the bathroom where she crouched on the cold green tiles and leaned her forehead against the toilet seat.

( It was her fault. )

The high school building was at least fifty years old, set up against a wide park belonging to the city that the school had managed to preserve against urban encroachment all these years. Though surrounded by single-story ranch houses from the 1960s on two sides and a run-down business district on the others, the park had survived with a good half of its trees intact.

Adel jogged across the edge of the football field like she was any old giant red dog chasing after a frisbee. The grass had recently been mown, which tossed a lot of extra irritating smells into her face. ( If Blythe had come by much less recently, even a werewolf couldn't track her. )

So, apparently part two was lost on the internets.

I wrote it yesterday afternoon, and posted it at exactly 5:01pm. I was rushing to get out of here and... yeah. I must've pushed the wrong fucking button. That's 1000 words lost forever. Wow. This hasn't happened to me in AGES. Like, not since I was 15. Time to revise the way I write these things.

Ugh. I'll rewrite it. But omg ugh. I have to mourn it for a bit. All those words gone.

***UPDATE!***

Found it. I had it on a filter I didn't mean to put it on. Thank god I pushed the wrong filter button, and not the wrong POST button. *whew*

Below the cut, a story I just wrote involving ( sex, werewolves, soccer practice, and the kind of argument I never had with my mother. Thank God. )