I sometimes wish I had a magic remote control, like in Click, that would let me pause the world so I don’t have to face something until I’m good and ready for it. Ah, Monday Blues on a Sunday evening. *sigh*

I cleaned out my makeup bag this evening. Yes, very interesting, no? But I realized I still had a half-used powder compact I hadn’t opened since I was a freshman in college, a few tins of eyeshadow I bought and realized the color didn’t suit me, and a bottle of empty Clinique foundation that I seem to have kept in case I need to buy the product again (even though I have since graduated to another type of foundation). So, I emptied all the old stuff out and kept what I use — and a few tins of eyeshadow I couldn’t get rid of just in case (hey, baby steps, right?). My face is completely made up like a mask because I tried out some of those makeups I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep or get rid of. I think in the next hour or two I’ll go wash my face and head to the gym. I feel restless.

I also deleted some 15 pages of “Morgan” today. Morgan gets shot in the thigh, which compliments her other bullet wounds in both shoulders. All these wounds were done to try and incapacitate her, not because anyone was really trying to kill her, however, its proving a unique challenge to try and write someone with bullet wounds. I knew that it took a while to heal bullet wounds, but I didn’t know how long, and then questions started popping in my head: What about physical therapy? Infection? Does she have to go to the hospital? What about pain? While in older times people would have sucked up a bullet wound, probably taken a swig of whiskey, and continued on their merry way, it gets harder to make such behavior believable in a futuristic setting. The principle is the same when there are blackouts. People in by-gone times didn’t have the joys of electricity, but we do, and so when the lights go out I for one suddenly think, Crap, what will I do now? And quickly get antsy and bored. In the future where there is medical miracles, Morgan would be even less equipped to deal with bullet wounds without medical assistance.

However, I wrote 15 pages before I really began thinking about all this stuff and went to my local Barnes & Nobles and Borders to do a bit of research. I also realized I forgot to mention anything about bullet extraction! So, after learning about recovery times (weeks) and the necessary physical/occupational therapy afterwards (especially for those wounds in her shoulders), I decided those 15 pages were going to have to be rewritten. However this may work in my benefit. I can do some character development during Morgan’s downtime, particularly between her and the love interest, and I decided to push the sex scene back 2 chapters, which I think makes the whole thing much more organic and believable. While Morgan has a tendency to jump into bed, Quinn definitely does not.

When I told John all this, he said, “You know, it could have worked the way you were writing it. The bullet could have just gone clean through the thigh, missing the bone. Then you wouldn’t have had to worry about bullet extraction and everything –”

I said, “Don’t tell me that after I deleted the 15 pages. Not listening! La la la la! Besides, it’s definitely better this way.”

7:37 pm | Category: Journal, Morgan, Writing | |

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