Watch What You Say...

I doubt that this is just something I do. Your brain thinks one thing, your mouth says another. The only problem is that I seem to do this kind of thing more than most people. Take today for example. My cat, Picard, got into my mother's room, so she tells me to get him out so he won't shed hair all over her stuff. So I open my mouth to call Picard, and I end up shutting my mouth halfway through Farhan's name, which my mother notices. I know how that happened - before going up to see Mom I'd been working on True or False?, specifically a chapter in Farhan's POV. I could have just as easily ended up calling my cat Goher or Shazi, but of course that's not the most reassuring thing to tell my mother, who now thinks I'm crazily obsessed.

On another note, I'm doing my best to finish the first draft of True or False? by the end of this week. Let's hope I can do it...

Dreams

Dreams can always be a source of inspiration to authors. I got the idea for True or False? from a dream, and so far it's been going pretty well, although I don't know why Jal the band still keeps showing up in my dreams. Not that I'm complaining - the dreams have always been pleasant, except for one that made me cry in the morning when I woke up... Anyway, last night I had yet another dream involving Farhan, Goher, and Shazi. And no, it was not something to inspire another novel. Calm down, I'm getting to the point. In the dream, everyone in my family was sitting at home doing...nothing, from what I could tell, when the doorbell rang. My Dad, who was near the door, didn't answer it for some reason and went up to his room, maybe because he didn't want to be seen in his pajamas. I don't know why, but I was pretty excited and glad that I got to open the door myself, and I saw first Farhan, then Goher, and then Shazi. Don't know how I'd been expecting them, but I pretended that I hadn't and invited them in, making sure they sat down in our living room first before they could tell me what they were doing there. And then I don't remember what the rest of the dream was about. That's the unfortunate thing - I can never seem to remember the whole of my dreams, only little bits and pieces. Their car probably broke down just outside the house or something. Or maybe they needed directions, but I know that Goher has an iPhone so I would think that he'd be able to use the maps function for that...unless it ran out of battery. I don't know, but I can use some aspects of the dream in True or False? - like...never mind, I can't, because I really don't remember much other than opening the door, seeing them all in sunglasses (in February? Well, I use transition glasses that annoy me beyond all reason but always look like sunglasses as long as the sun is out. I don't know what their excuse is...), and inviting them in. Did I mention that it was snowing in my dream? 

Almost There...

I have about a third of True or False? left to write, then some time - hopefully not much more than a month - for editing. In terms of editing, there are some details I need to go back and add, some stuff that need cutting out, and the typical grammar and spelling errors. I also need to go back and add some chapters in Goher's point of view (in the unnecessarily large screenshot, he's the one on the left - and the guitarist of the band. He's also on the left in the smaller screenshot.) for one of the subplots of the novel that I later decided needed to be expanded on. There's also a chapter that requires some historical research done, so that will take a couple of days - I'm grateful for the Internet - and one chapter in Farhan's point of view that I got so stuck on that I had to skip it and go on to the next chapter. Let me point out that it is not easy to write a novel where your characters are real people - I might have to end up following Farhan around for a day before I can get that chapter right, or I might just need to watch a couple of interviews, depending on how it gets. In terms of stuff I need to cut out, there are some parts that are just...well, silly. But I like to make people laugh, so there are going to be parts that are a bit silly, but I want to cut anything out that just seems downright ridiculous. Usually anything like that was written after midnight. For some reason I always write a lot after midnight, but that's also when my brain tends to stop working properly, so what I write might not always make sense. Once I'm done with the manuscript and all the editing, I'll do what I can to see about copyright issues. Maybe the Law of Attraction can help me somehow pull the band to my front door with my mind...