Not last night but several nights before

... 24 robbers and some dude in a bear suit came knocking at my door....

Okay, that's not really how the song goes, but you have to admit that I just changed the game. Not that the old tune isn't kind of remarkable. I mean, it certainly would be a singular event to be chillin' in your window drinking a cup of tea and find 24 robbers moving en masse to knock on your door. That's a lot of people, dude. A veritable mass of humanity. Kind of overwhelming to think about, actually. So maybe it didn't need a bear suit. But somehow, the bear suit makes it less overwhelming and more whimsical, right? 

I don't know for certain, because I've never been face to face with a bunch of robbers trying to knock on a door, but I have heard Sarah tell me an entertaining story about the time she went to meet her dad at the Fairmont bar and it was ground zero for furries looking to meet other furries for cuddling and/or tail pulling, and I know that the addition of fully formed humans in animal pajamas certainly made her story of meeting her dad for a drink a million times more whimsical. Yes, I do think the bear suit adds the perfect amount of panache to something that'd be scary at worst and a somewhat exaggerated study in criminal migration habits at best. 

Not to mention that it's fascinating to pick apart the backstory of how a guy in a bear suit (who must be named Gary) ends up running with a phat gang of robbers. You have to agree that only weird Gary from QA would get up to something like that in his spare time. He was always a bit off.

{15 minutes of pondering what brought Gary to this point in his life... Poor Gary. He never had a chance.}

So, all scary, hairy, Garys aside, I started this post with the intention of talking less about fully grown men who self-identify as woodland creatures and more about how I made some progress on my novel. Thought progress... Thought progress that I put down into bullets but did not attempt to write in prose or dialogue. Story arc and character profiles and all of the fun imaginative stuff. 

And I did a worksheet, which I wrote in blue ink. The ideas came out of my head and found their way into this notebook that I've been carrying all all over town for the last four months. A notebook that I once hoped would grab ideas out of the very air and vacuum seal them for fictional freshness.

This isn't my story outline. It's our hearts score from the other night... in the very notebook that should hold magical plots... but which has only been good for scratch paper of late...

Of course, it doesn't work that way, which is why I just ended up with a beat up notebook that I kept moving from purse to purse. But now it has things in it. And while my plot has tons of holes and I still can't decide where to set my story, I felt like a freaking gangsta.

I have to think I finally made some progress because I went old school and didn't let my super complicated storyboarding software poke holes in everything before I had managed to fully form a thought. The software and its hints that are less hint-y and more like... um... how would I say it? Crushing to the creative process??? 

It was like the developer said to himself, "Self... let's make some software that helps people write a book. And let's make this shit super helpful. Like, at every step I won't just give them a box to fill in. I'll craft the most supportive software ever and help these tortured souls by providing examples."

And that all sounds pretty good. But then he got super wasted and had a fight with his girlfriend, the kind that made him feel super passive aggressive and superior because how dare she call him out for being insensitive when she doesn't even use locally sourced honey in her tea?! And then, because he was feeling so angry and misunderstood and like FUCK HER, he went to a dark coding place and went so overboard with all of the examples that they became the opposite of helpful and more of a reminder that you're not a freaking professional and that everyone else has better ideas than you.

He was the Chris Farley of storyboarding software coding. But instead of being kind of funny and sad, he turned into that guy in the MFA program who thinks he's going to be invited to the Iowa Writers Workshop and WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT IT.

 "Hey, remember that time that this other guy wrote a million perfect plots? You wanna read one or 50 and forget all about what you had in your head? And maybe you should just drink a whole bottle of brandy and smash your face on the keyboard because you suck and you're totally missing that part of the plot where the wanderer becomes the martyr and it's never gonna come out right."

Yep

Also, the icon in the dock for this software is kind of creepy looking. It reminds me of how I lose my mind whenever I open it.

But how awesome did it feel to do a worksheet in my novel-writing book? 

Answer: So awesome.

Have a photo taken from really far away because, while I'm super happy and proud, I don't want anyone to see it yet.

Far away notekeeping

So yeah. Feeling good. So good, that I'm gonna work on the next worksheet. And then I'm going to create a flowchart of Caraval events by character because Cynthia had a freaking brilliant idea and I love making flow charts. And then, when all of that is through, I think I'll cap off the night by pouring one out for Gary and his poor choices.