Today’s writing day…

Today's writing day actually got me started on The Stars Change again, after a month or so away. (Many thanks to Holly, Heather, and Mary Robinette!) I kind of trudged through some summary sections, feeling utterly uninspired, and then remembered that, oh yeah, I'm a lazy writer, and some of this summary would probably work better as scene, if I just did the work. And so I started rewriting it as scene, and it is SO much better, and so much more fun to write. Hooray! It's kind of a pain that I apparently have to learn the same writing lessons over and over and over again, but at least I do learn them.

Here's a snippet from tonight. And now, to bed. (In the morning, a hopefully final pass on the Captain Jack essay (made good progress today, final due Wednesday), and then, if kids and Kevin allow, I'd like to work on this some more. We'll see.)

She'd asked, or rather, demanded, "Why not give me a better internal thermostat? You modified other things, why not that?" What Narita actually wanted, deep down, were huge butterfly wings growing out of her back, but even at thirteen, she had realized how impractical those would have been.

Her mother, Uma, smiled, brushing damp hair back from Narita's forehead with a cool hand. "Hush, child. We made sure you wouldn't get cancer or smallpox or Jovian flu. That your eyesight and hearing would be perfect. That is not the same thing as tweaking your genes, willy-nilly. When you have your own children, you'll understand -- you should only make important changes to the genes. Too much changing is dangerous."

The snarky pre-teen replied, "You made me pretty, too. Was that important?"

Uma just shook her head, refusing to engage. "Go take a nice, cool swim. You'll feel better."

(excerpted from "Old Friends Meet," The Stars Change