It's time for a Grand Gesture to solve an easily resolvable conflict in 50,230 words
I did it! I've surpassed the 50,000 word mark. Though I still have quite a bit of plot to go, I will probably finish in the next 3 - 5 days. It's getting hard to find excerpts to post that are not complete spoilers. Thus no blog yesterday, and only a short one today.
Below is an excerpt where Serena is trying to give Evelyn a pep talk, and help her out with the wording of her Grand Gesture speech.
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"And that’s the problem. Every time I think of something to say, it seems wrong,” Evelyn lamented.
“Run it past me. Pretend I am Harper. We can do a role-play.”
“Ok…Well… Harper. I’m so sorry about the way that you found out about my plan to make you fall in love with me. You see, I have always loved you. And I have never been able to gather up the courage to tell you. All those years at summer camp, I would watch you while you were sleeping because I didn’t want to miss a thing. I didn’t want to fall asleep, because even if I was dreaming of you it wouldn’t be good enough. And now that I have you back in my life, I don’t want to live without you. I mean, I’m sure I could live without you. But I would much rather not. Please live with me?” She said it all in a huff, almost like one run-on sentence. By then end, she was out of breath and sweating.
“That was a good rough draft,” I reassured her, not wanting to mention that it might have been the least romantic thing I had ever heard. And that part that certainly wasn't a veiled suicide threat, but sounded like one? Some things were best left behind, including that being the speech preceding the Grand Gesture in this romance.
I love a grand gesture!! Not a fan of the easily resolvable problems that tend to come before grand gestures, they stress me out.
ReplyDeleteI also love well-placed Aerosmith references (or let's be honest, ill-placed Aerosmith references), and people not making veiled suicide threats to their loved ones!
Good thing Evelyn gave the speech a practice run. Telling someone you watch them while they sleep and making veiled suicide threats only works in the movies (I hope). Congratulations on blowing past 50,000!
ReplyDeleteI'm out of breath and sweating after reading that first draft of a grand romantic gesture speech. I have a lot of concerns about it. Hopefully Serena can help her to edit all of the veiled suicide threats out of the speech. Some things are best left behind, and some things truly are best to be missed.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with Indigo that there are any ill-placed Aerosmith references. There's nowhere that Aerosmith doesn't belong.