Villain motivations, query letters, and the end of testosterone

Illegally driving to Roger Williams Park again to paint. It's the perfect weather for it.

Now back to writing.

If you know the enneagram, then you'll know something about nines. This personality type, I've been told, wants everyone to get along, la la la, and will ignore evidence to the contrary.

Okay, I am oversimplifying. But supposedly that is my prerogative, as a nine. Or maybe a five. Or maybe an eight. Whatever.

At any rate, it is true that I just want all my characters to get along and be happy, which is an unfortunate starting place for a fiction writer.

So I did this internet search, no joke, to find out "why people do bad things". It sent me to this website, with a rundown of 27 reasons people do dumb a** **it. For in internet list, it was actually informative. If you spend most of your life sticking your head in the sand. Which, as a nine, I do. Allegedly.

The list also seems like a good source for plot lines. I have been going through the roll call to add to my 100 plot lines exercise. I am now on #43. This exercise is harder than I thought it would be.

Bon bon bon, alors, now, in another novel related vein, I am writing an agent query for the novel I wrote in 2011, looking over the first five pages again.

I am beginning to understand my friend Sarah's tactful question about intended audience, because the beginning wasn't "obvious." Or some other gentle way of saying that the first pages didn't grab you and tell you what the story was about, or why one might be interested in reading it.

Uh oh. I like the first five pages, but they take the reader back about fifty years before the main action... Mistake?

Twiddling my thumbs, thinking. Okay, now I've rewritten (again) the first few pages. I think it is more accessible. But it still starts in the same time period as it did before.

I decided to rewrite the query, so that the mini-synopsis is cast off from the same point as the book. I just won't go into as much detail about the characters who come later on down the pipeline, even though they are more pivotal to the book. Again, mistake? I don't know.

*****************

I took off my hat while collecting Lucy and Emile from their play time with the little boy across the way, and his eyes got big. 

“What?!” he said, surprised. “You mean you still have cancer?!”

Yep. I still have cancer. The cancer diaries continue.

I met with the gynecological surgeon today. I had assumed that the surgeon I already have would be removing my ovaries, too, but I assumed wrong. So, two surgeons, one morning. At the end, no breasts, no ovaries, no hair (still). 

A bald eunuch.

This surgeon reminded me that all hormones would stop, too, meaning no testosterone, so no sex drive.

This sounds alarming. Does that also mean no orgasms?? Is all pleasure from testosterone?

Can't be, right? What about the pleasure of touch? We'll see, I guess.

The pain of taxol is better when I get enough sleep, and it's easier to sleep when the pain isn't as bad, so I have been trying not to get sucked into a downward spiral this time. Last time I overindulged in late night movies, and was the worse for it. Although I enjoyed the movies... So instead I am writing and reading, and trying to be in bed at a reasonable hour. 

Yesterday I saw a young child, maybe four years old, being wheeled around in a plastic car by his papa, along with the child's chemo bag. Man, if we could keep this from happening to little folks, that would be a marvelous thing.

Other posts about writing, and NaNoWriMo:  Novel Inspiration, and How to Get Some,  The End of NaNoWriMo,  Southerners must be laughing...,  NoMo what?,  Preparing for National Novel Writing Month,  Fiddle Advice, Noveling Novelties, and Wildness,  and  Writing "The End".