Highs and Lows

On Writing: Highs: I had a good writing day yesterday. I added almost 3k to my m/s. The basic idea for this plot is my heroine is living a quiet, happy life until her sister tells her she is sick and might need a bone marrow transplant. Now she must suddenly find the rest of her long-lost foster family. Desperate, she ends up using a movie star in a nearby town to get on the cover of a tabloid and attract the attention of her family. Part of it works. She does find her foster family. But it blows up in her face because she and the movie star have a red-hot fling, until he thinks she was just using him. Which she was. Just not for the reasons he was thinking. And then the heroine finds out her sister was lying to her anyway. Her sister isn't sick, unless you call morning sickness sick. And that's just the first 50 pages of the book. I warned you I write quirky romances, right?

So, anyway, originally the sister just kind of disappeared from the story after that as the story takes a weird twist around page 88 with other problems for heroine to deal with. The sister does reappear near the black moment, but she did feel a little like a dropped thread.What I added yesterday brings her back into the story to add more conflict for my lovely, gullible heroine. And today I'm adding another scene with conflict. I know who it's between but not sure how it's going to end up yet. Should be fun.

On Life: Lows: #2 Son is home with us this semester taking classes at the local community college instead of the 4 year college where he's studying engineering. We brought him home because last spring semester he became addicted to on-line computer gaming. You know, role-playing type games. He stopped going out with friends in his dorm. He stopped communicating with everyone in the family. He stopped eating properly. He says he went to classes, but his grades plummeted. So, he's been back since May and we've been working on this with his family doctor and it's not easy.

A computer game addiction is like any other addiction. He uses it to escape when he's stressed. He can avoid reality lost in a game. I guess I'd liken it to someone who has a food addiction. With an addiction to drugs or alcohol, you can go cold turkey and build your life to avoid it. You can't do that with food or computers. It's been stressful on the family, trying to help him and watching the many times he tries to play. Like any addiction, there's a lot of lying involved. And that's hard when we're all trying to help him. He's a great kid. Smart, funny, sensitive, sweet. I want so badly for him to be happy and successful. Addiction is a painful thing especially knowing there is no magic pill. One day at a time, I guess.

And, since I ended this post on such a depressing note, I promise I'll find something happier for tomorrow. Like rainbows and puppies. Maybe even rainbow puppies.