Day 102: My Birthday

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Today was my birthday.

For celebrations, we watched all of the movies that had "made me who I am." Honestly, only two held up, and those were Tangled and Moulin Rouge.

Actually, Moulin Rouge actually makes sense when you're an adult and not a twelve-year-old at a lock-in after opening night of The Sound of Music.

But it's just another frustrating example of how my storytelling skillz have gotten better over the years, and now I can't watch Swan Princess without realizing how absolutely dumb everyone in the movie is. Seriously, Rothbert? You got what you wanted, and you lose it all -- including your life -- because you want to give Derek one more shot? "Only if you defeat me" my ass. You deserve to lose.

Anyway, there's been a lot of consternation when it comes to my draft. I finished it, had a couple of days of "THIS IS AWESOME," and then immediately fell back into, "Why am I even writing this thing? Why do I even try? Do I even want to write this thing? Maybe I would actually have fun writing something else. I should write something else."

But no. I'm attempting to cut away. And that's the other thing, cutting. I have to cut 140 pages in order to make this book a reasonable length for the YA market. Now that I know what the story is, that means that the chopping block has been set up, and the blades have been sharpened. So far, I've cut an entire main character and an entire set piece.

I know it's all a part of growing up as a writer. I know that looking at my writing and seeing how it's improved is a good sign that I've come further down the road of becoming an actualized writer. But good lord, why can't I just burp out the most amazing thing written by human hands? Something that farts rainbows and sparkles in the sunlight because it is made of pure unicorn gold?

Anyway, it was my birthday. Happy birthday to me!