Tough Love

Wow, last week was a shitty one for writing. I'm not making excuses. Just stating the plain fact that between the crazy shit going on at my dayjob and life in general, I just couldn't pull the end of this story together like I'd planned. Of course, being fixated on the Australian Open didn't help, either. What can I say, I'm a sucker for Grand Slam tennis, plus it was my escape from dayjob hell.

I did manage to pull together Act II of my story, and that's what I brought to the biweekly crit group vivisection yesterday. Here's what they said:

For the Win

• This section was "intriguing." (I get that a lot these days)
• Good character details: e.g. being a member of MUFON; scene on the train ride in; what she wears to work
• Apparently, the way I wrote a section showing "The Battle of the Moon" was 95% win, in terms of its description and most of the details of how my protagonist came upon it.

Story!Fail

• Good question on one reader's part: I never described wtf MUFON was.
• I ended Act II with a confusing situation. Out of seven readers, only one verbalized what was going on, and even that was only a guess on his part.
• One thing I apparently failed to fix from the last section I brought, my character still isn't showing enough of her alleged skepticism. She's still taking what's told to her at face value.
• The 5% of "Battle of the Moon" fail had to do with exactly how the MC stumbled onto it.

I probably will not be bringing Act III to group. I'm behind, not only in terms of my personal goal of finishing and sending off one new story per month, but because the deadline to submit this story as the opening salvo in my contest with the other Four Horsemen is today. I did get some plotting help from the other members of my crit group, and I already have one of my trusty beta-readers on what I already have. The plan is to finish this bitch and fire it out to the rest of my beta readers today or tomorrow. Okay, Wednesday. After all, Mercedes has already drawn steel.