Finished with fifty-eight pages of revision done yesterday, which pretty much kicks ass. That included about three thousand new words added … and about the same number removed. Ended up with a net loss of three hundred words and change. But that’s okay. I have a few scenes that I’m going to have to add in — I’ll make up the loss.
And killing people I like got put off until today. I’m not expecting another fifty-page day. Or even a forty-page one. Twenty would be good.
Heard back from one of my exotic dancer consultants; she went into deep detail and came up with some amazingly useful comments. A couple of offhand remarks she made will allow me to fix a persistent plot problem I was having. Nice serendipity on that. And everything else either validated my research or corrected areas where I couldn’t FIND any research.
I swear, one of the best things about being a writer is that people will TALK to you, honestly and in great detail, about their work, their lives, the struggles they’ve gone through and their hopes and dreams. I had the same experience to a degree as an RN, but there is always this barrier, because as an RN, you’re the person who sooner or later may well claim the need to physically invade your patient’s privacy, inflict pain, or be the bearer of horrible news. And patients lie to nurses only slightly less often than they lie to cops. "Honesht to God, just two beersh." "No, I haven’t ever taken illegal drugs." "I couldn’t be pregnant: I’m a virgin." "He just fell down those stairs." "She was playing with the cigarette and burned herself like that."
People tell the truth to fiction writers because fictions writers aren’t going to expose them. Or hurt them. Or do anything with that truth except disguise it as more fiction. And when people tell the truth, they’re wonderful.
Most of my faith in humanity, what of it there is, has been restored by getting out of nursing and becoming a writer.
