Saturday, October 30, 2010

A dream is a wish your heart makes

Once upon a time, I wrote a book. I talked about it here, and I was going to show it to people at the writer's conference last week. I missed the official deadline to send in pages for a critique and used that as an excuse to mess with it a little more.

If my book were Cinderella, she'd be standing here, in rags. She was dressed and ready for the ball, looking all put-together and then her stepsisters ripped the entire thing apart. I did the damage of two evil-stepsisters, all by myself! Now I'm just hoping I can also take on the role of fairy godmother and craft a new, shiny dress, complete with glass slippers. I am praying that there will be a happy ending to this revision journey so I can stick with the Cinderella analogy. I can't think about poor Humpty Dumpty.

I am reading Souvenir, by Therese Fowler. I love it. My problem is, I know it. The Theme seems very familiar to my Cinderella. I can't decide if that is a good thing or not. It might have been Shakespeare, or my creative writing teacher in college, who said "There are no new stories." But these two are very similar when you look at the bones. I have not finished the book but I think I know how it ends. (Maybe it does not end like mine--stay tuned!) The details are different, of course. Hers is set in Florida, while mine is in Alaska. Hers takes place now (or a few years ago) while mine takes place a century ago. I have not come across a moose in her story but she includes sex, drugs and rock and roll. My Cinderella just has sex.

I hope the next post will involve my Cinderella, pages fluttering in the wind, heading towards the sunset in a carriage pulled by two horses. I really hate to involve all the king's horses and all the king's men.

2 comments:

jocelyn said...

I love Cinderella stories :) Good luck getting her ready again. I can't wait :)

by the way, my word verifciation was "mismantl", is that close to dismantle or like a problem with a miss? :)

Jen said...

You can do it! Maybe the break NaNo offers will give you a chance to find your magic wand :)