Day 5. 10,069 words, and 2k worth of internal turmoil for Seth.
Wow, remember how I said that I was going to create some character flaws for my protagonist? (I think this was actually on a comment on Jill's blog, so you maybe haven't read about that.) Well, if overthinking counts as a flaw, then I was successful today. In yesterday's 2k, a lot happened. In today's 2k, Seth thought about a lot of things and couldn't figure out how she felt. Get it together, Seth! The novel needs to move forward!!
Today's excerpt illustrates this overthinking. This is part of Seth's thought process after kissing Si.
All this ran through one half of my mind while the other half was fully engrossed by my kissing technique. When the kiss ended, and I took a step back, Si gave me a heart-stoppingly adorable look with his famous gray-blue eyes. The look, I realized, was as famous as those eyes. It was the look that he had bestowed on Kaley Winters in the post-kiss scene from My Summer Holidays. Which meant that in this scenario, I was only part of the story to help him reach his next epiphany. In a few days he would realize that he never should have left his wife, or taken that job, or run over that child, or put his mother in a home, or not put his mother in a home, and then he would be off to his next big thing, leaving me behind.
Which on the one hand, was not a big deal because hello, it was just a kiss and I was just as experienced as he was in matters related to one-night stands. (Or so I told myself.) On the other hand, I wasn’t thrilled about being used as some kind of plot twist for this man whose eyes, I now realized, were the color of a dull and gloomy day. I took one more step back.
“Thank you. I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” he said. His face now combined ‘quietly dignified’ with the ‘shy’ that had already been there. I tried to memorize the look so that I could try to find it in a Google image search the next day (or, more probably, that night before going to bed). I had just kissed a Hollywood actor. A Hollywood actor had just kissed me, a frumpy (well, I actually thought I was pretty hot but was trying to see myself through his eyes, where I inevitably failed to measure up to the nineteen year old actresses he was used to) non-profit worker who had been lecturing him about racism and transphobia for two weeks. The only possible explanations were that he was a) bored and passing the time, b) hoping to cut down on the number of times I would lecture him, or c) rehearsing his range of emotions in preparation for his next role.
“Really.” My voice was flat and skeptical.
“Well, yes. I like a smart woman.”
“That’s what you like about me. I’m smart. Do you kiss every smart woman you meet?”
“No, obviously not. And you’re not just smart. You’re funny, you’re sexy, and—“
“That’s fine. You don’t need to go on. It was a nice kiss. Let’s just leave it at that. It’s been a long night.” I yawned, unsure of what emotion I felt safe projecting for Si to see. I was getting angrier by the second. I didn’t mind the kiss so much as Si trying to convince me that it had meant something to him, when it was so impossibly impossible for that to be true. Meanwhile, Si was looking confused. I had no doubt that being turned down by a woman was an unusual occurrence for him, until I remembered that I hadn’t actually turned him down. In fact, I had kissed him passionately (I was embarrassed to remember how passionately) and then immediately become enraged and given him the cold shoulder. Well, if I couldn’t be consistent from the beginning, at least I could start being consistent now. From this point forward, consistency would be my one good quality.
Today's excerpt illustrates this overthinking. This is part of Seth's thought process after kissing Si.
All this ran through one half of my mind while the other half was fully engrossed by my kissing technique. When the kiss ended, and I took a step back, Si gave me a heart-stoppingly adorable look with his famous gray-blue eyes. The look, I realized, was as famous as those eyes. It was the look that he had bestowed on Kaley Winters in the post-kiss scene from My Summer Holidays. Which meant that in this scenario, I was only part of the story to help him reach his next epiphany. In a few days he would realize that he never should have left his wife, or taken that job, or run over that child, or put his mother in a home, or not put his mother in a home, and then he would be off to his next big thing, leaving me behind.
Which on the one hand, was not a big deal because hello, it was just a kiss and I was just as experienced as he was in matters related to one-night stands. (Or so I told myself.) On the other hand, I wasn’t thrilled about being used as some kind of plot twist for this man whose eyes, I now realized, were the color of a dull and gloomy day. I took one more step back.
“Thank you. I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” he said. His face now combined ‘quietly dignified’ with the ‘shy’ that had already been there. I tried to memorize the look so that I could try to find it in a Google image search the next day (or, more probably, that night before going to bed). I had just kissed a Hollywood actor. A Hollywood actor had just kissed me, a frumpy (well, I actually thought I was pretty hot but was trying to see myself through his eyes, where I inevitably failed to measure up to the nineteen year old actresses he was used to) non-profit worker who had been lecturing him about racism and transphobia for two weeks. The only possible explanations were that he was a) bored and passing the time, b) hoping to cut down on the number of times I would lecture him, or c) rehearsing his range of emotions in preparation for his next role.
“Really.” My voice was flat and skeptical.
“Well, yes. I like a smart woman.”
“That’s what you like about me. I’m smart. Do you kiss every smart woman you meet?”
“No, obviously not. And you’re not just smart. You’re funny, you’re sexy, and—“
“That’s fine. You don’t need to go on. It was a nice kiss. Let’s just leave it at that. It’s been a long night.” I yawned, unsure of what emotion I felt safe projecting for Si to see. I was getting angrier by the second. I didn’t mind the kiss so much as Si trying to convince me that it had meant something to him, when it was so impossibly impossible for that to be true. Meanwhile, Si was looking confused. I had no doubt that being turned down by a woman was an unusual occurrence for him, until I remembered that I hadn’t actually turned him down. In fact, I had kissed him passionately (I was embarrassed to remember how passionately) and then immediately become enraged and given him the cold shoulder. Well, if I couldn’t be consistent from the beginning, at least I could start being consistent now. From this point forward, consistency would be my one good quality.
Yikes, this left me feeling terrible for both of them. That has to be one of the worst reactions to a kiss that I've ever read (in that Seth reacted really badly, not that you wrote it badly). I'm looking forward to finding out how Si convinces Seth that he was being sincere.
ReplyDeleteThis was awesome! Loved the portrayal of Seth's contradictory emotions and Si's confused reaction. Your last line "consistency would be my one good quality" was very interesting - have you gone from having a character without flaws to one who is all flaws but one? I doubt it! Also, hilarious that Seth was thinking about the google search for later. Hope the "Si" search function has been blocked.
ReplyDeleteThis was my favourite line, because it really captured the absurdity of Seth's response: In fact, I had kissed him passionately (I was embarrassed to remember how passionately) and then immediately become enraged and given him the cold shoulder.
ReplyDeleteSeth's emotional instability is awesome!
Hahahahaha I forgot about 'blocked' search functions!
ReplyDeleteI love how Seth is always putting up a front to hide her emotions, because later, she is going to make a big deal about how Si's world is so inauthentic...