Challenges and updates and poor bruised elbows

Well, like I wrote about on my marriage blog today, I haven’t really felt like writing blogs lately. I’m sorry for just vanishing. But I am back now! Unfortunately, I don’t have much news. [Other than the fact that, once again, I hit my elbow on the door frame. Ugh.] But…

I am doing a writing challenge! [You can read more about it here.]

The goal is to write two pages a day through the end of the year; if I do that, I will have somewhere between 200 and 250 pages!

Now, for me, it likely won’t result in a completed manuscript [and especially not one ready to publish in 2014, just because of how I am writing this story] --- I have a feeling I won’t be writing all of those pages in book one. BUT…in other news…

I am now on chapter 18! And I wrote a couple of pages last night [about two in chapter 18; about one in 17…had to tweak some stuff there].

I don’t know for sure what will happen in 18…but I believe that the new characters will probably come in in chapter 19.  I’m trying to guesstimate when exactly this part I am on will meet up with the part I have written [with the new people]. I think that it will be sometime in 19. Either that, or at the very beginning of chapter 20. …Probably 19, unless something new comes up in 18. …There are getting to be WAY too many numbers in this post.

Now, granted, I have no idea how many chapters book one will be, so it kind of doesn’t mean anything.

I am excited though.

And a little…what’s the word…tentative? Tentative.

Because I don’t know what happens.

And there are lots of things to consider --- namely, her physical state. …And emotional/mental state.

I don’t want it to be cliché.

…I just don’t know what would be cliché in this. Is it more realistic for her to dwell on the trauma she’s endured? Or is it more realistic for her to try to push it aside and focus on surviving?

It seems like she’d do the latter…but I’m torn. Because she has been broken. Broken in ways that she wasn’t before. Her personality is resilience…but how much of that resilience still remains?

But I think it is more realistic for her to try not to dwell, to try her best to push it all away. …But it won’t stay there. And that needs to be clear. What I refuse to have happen is for her to go on like nothing happened, like no one hurt her. I want her to focus on surviving, but I also want the inn to be right at the back of her mind.

And I think, even with things I’ve written so far…I show that pretty well. She is paranoid nearly to the point of insanity, she is intensely distrustful, and the mere sight of men freaks her out. A man touching her, even just her shoulder, sends her into flashback mode. She is terrified, but it comes out as defiance and anger and threats of violence.

…So, truly, everything about her personality from this point on, until she starts to trust people…is more or less a front. A pretense she creates so she won’t have to think about the abuse she’s endured…won’t have to deal with any of it.  

For her character…it is very realistic that she would create a wall between herself and the pain. She’s done it before, with other traumatic stuff that happened before the story started. [Hehe, not telling! ;) ] And naturally, she would do it again. That’s how she deals with stuff --- blocks it from her mind, buries it somewhere in her subconscious where she thinks it won’t be able to hurt her.

…But some things refuse to stay buried.

…Some things refuse to be pushed aside for long.

…This is going to be fun.