Death Man Update and Borderline OCD

My poor abandoned 'F' key sitting
 in the apartment entryway near the
 drain like a lump of something too
solid to wash down.

Right now I'm in the process of figuring it all out. Finally. I referred to myself as a tenth frame bowler in my cover letter to my mentor and now it's time to put my money where my mouth is. I need some strikes this month if I'm going to graduate but the good news is that I've charted out the first part of the book and I'm on my way to plotting through the second part of the book as well. I'd like to take you on a photographic journey (please excuse the quality of some of these pictures (the ones I took) as they were taken with a Blackberry and I lack my girlfriend's photo editing patience and skills.  

Yep, that's how I felt all through September.

Narcisa helped me with my chart by
acting as a sleek, black paperweight.

Last month I was a frazzled mess but this month I'm feeling much better. October is going to be a crazy time for Hannah and I as we are participating in a variety of events with the IEPG as well as throwing a Halloween Party on Halloween night! By the time we actually throw that party I want to eat nachos, drink vodka based vampire themed libations, and crash like a college kid at our friends' house in Spokane with the knowledge that I have 120 pages to turn into my mentor for the next packet. I don't think I'll be able to relax and fully enjoy the party unless that much is true - the 120 pages part. But I think now, I will be able to do it. First of all, my mentor made me smile very broadly today.  She sent back her response to my charts and scenes that I sent her for my mini third packet. The subject line read: good work! And she sent a cute picture of a painting that I do believe she painted herself (she does some fun abstract stuff in her spare time, which she has less of since she's dealing with a troublesome grad student such as myself). The title of the painting is "Cheer Up!" said the Lemon to the Fish. It was pretty darn cute.  

The messy paper!

A few days ago I sat down in mom's room and went to work doing what I should have done from the start. It took a while but seeing it all laid out was not only helpful to me in a writing sense but enormously pleasing to my OCD sensibilities. I chronicled the process for it shall be repeated very soon in order to plot out the rest of the novel. By the time I was done I had a huge paper (and I do mean huge - I wrote this out on the back of my mother's calendar paper that she uses to plan out activities for her work) full of scribbles, numbers, and notes. But then I played around with Excel and created a spreadsheet of sexy color coordination. This is kind of my pride and joy right now and it's giving me some real direction for my story. I do have some pages written but not nearly enough for my creative thesis. Wish me luck that by the time I hole up for Halloween that I can can relax in the comfort of having followed the charts and created a novel that is good enough at least to get me my MFA. After I graduate I'm going to binge on tv shows and pulp for about a month and then I want to finish up this bad boy and work on polishing it for publication. If I can get this and SoAH charted and written, then maybe I'll have a chance. Or, hell, I'll at least have a couple of books I can share with friends. 

BEHOLD! My chart of Glory!