VERY PRODUCTIVE DAY

I wrote three chapters today. Two at home before work, and one at work before the students came. I now have over 11,000 words written since Jan 28. I gave in to planning today. I got ideas as to more complicated progressive events and jotted them down in my Novel Workup page. That's the first bit of preplanning I've done.

In the chapters (7-9), Eric (now Erica) and her mother go home where Erica confronts her brother. Her mother comes up after supper and talks her into showering. The older brother, Hugh (14), who thinks Erica is not a girl, believes Eric pervertedly is dressing in girl’s clothing and sneaks a peek at Eric in the shower. In total shock, Hugh runs back to his room. Chapter 9 ends when Eric is finishing shampooing his long blonde hair (it used to be short and brown) and the shower door is opened again. Thinking it's his brother again, she turns to discover Mr. Aleen, the alien substitute, standing there.

As usual, I read all three through a second time. I like to do a second draft so I can catch all the gross mistakes while my memory of the script is fresh. If I wait too long to edit, I may get confronted with too gross an error and not know what I meant.

I also finished the To Be a Gypsy Query letter to Writer's House's Rebecca Sherman. Tomorrow I will send it to that agent along with the synopsis and first ten pages. I really want representation by Writers House.

TWO MORE CHAPTERS

Today I wrote chapters five and six. In five, Erica's mother takes her to their family doctor. In the waiting room, she sees the 10-year-old girl, Tabitha, living across the street from her house. She questions why Erica looks so much like Eric and she tells Tabitha that she is his twin sister come to visit. She tells Tabitha that she lives with her divorced father in Pennsylvania.

In chapter six, they are admitted to the doctor, because Erica's mother insisted on seeing him due to an emergency. They try to explain the circumstances to the doctor, but he becomes very confused, and when he finally understands what they're saying, he recommends a psychiatrist and leaves.

At this point, the story sits at over 8,600 words and I have yet to plan either characters or plot. Both seem to be unfolding on their own as I go along. I get ideas about where the plot will go next, and even an inkling of how it will end, but I'm just going to let it go on at it's own pace and have fun with it.

I've got a great feel for it. I know the next chapter has to be about going home to meet the brother. Then I think it's time for the substitute teacher to pop in on Erica in her bedroom where we can learn a little more of where he's coming from. He's going to give our little hero (heroine) some assignments. Erica will remain in a female body with a boy's brain trapped inside, and when he begs to be changed back because he has found a new understanding about girls, the substitute will turn it up a notch and make it so his brain becomes female. I can see a wonderful ending, with Erica so used to being female, that he (she) doesn't want to go back to being a boy.

In some of the chapters already written, I've made it known that Erica's mother wanted him to be a girl when he was born. This will play well into allowing her to draw closer to him, now that her fondest wish has come true. When Erica's boys' brain is turned into a girls' brain, he's going to like the interaction with his mother as her daughter. Both will be closer than ever before.

Oh, well ... I was sort of thinking out loud.

TITLE CHANGE

I changed the title from Girl for a Month to Girl of the Month because the former gives too much away.

I wrote chapter three this morning and chapter four at work before my students arrived. I like to second-draft my work as I go along and yesterday afternoon I second-drafted the first two chapters. I couldn’t get the second-drafting of three and four done, because I had an unusually hectic day ... and I always put my students first.

After the first chapter, the protagonist, Eric Dasher, and his class think that Mr. Aleen, the substitute teacher, put girl clothes on him by hypnotizing him first. In the second chapter (after school), he goes to the bathroom to pee and makes the gruesome discovery that he's been turned into a girl.

Today I wrote the third and fourth chapter. In the third chapter, Eric, now Erica, walks home to confront her mother who thinks she's coming out as a trans-gendered girl. When she discovers that Eric’s boy parts have been changed to girl parts, she runs out of her room screaming. In the fourth chapter, Erica tries to change into her older brother's clothes, but something is preventing her from slipping into the pants and shirts. She suspects the alien substitute teacher has made it so she has to wear dresses or skirts.

IN THE BEGINNING

In the beginning, there was writing ... always writing. I've been writing steadily since 1994, and if blogs existed back then, I would have started one.

This is intended to be a creative record of my writings from now until ... whenever. Like many authors, I write under other pseudonyms. Authors do that so younger readers don't get a hold of objectionable material meant for an older readership.

Check me out at http://www.eugeneorlando.com/

Start Here:

Where am I now? Oh, yes--I'm putting together a story idea I'd like very much to write. It will probably be my next writing project. It is temporarily called Girl for a Month. It is the story of a boy, Eric Dasher (about 11), who has little respect for girls. In comes a substitute teacher at school, and the bullier of girls thinks right away--"Oh, boy. Time to party and make all the girls cry."

To his surprise, the male substitute teacher takes him into a little supply room off from the class and tells him he’s an alien assigned to punish Eric. He's to turn him into a girl for a month. Eric laughs and returns to the classroom wearing a skirt and top. All the kids still think he's a boy, and so they think that the substitute dressed him as a girl to punish his bad behavior toward girls. He thinks so, too, and suspects the man hypnotized him to make the switch. At the end of the period, he goes to the bathroom and discovers--uh, oh--he's a real girl!

Great idea for a story, right? I've always liked the Freaky Friday plot. I even wrote one for a more mature audience where a high school senior trades bodies with his sophomore sister. It won a second place prize in a nationwide unpublished novel contest.

So, today I started writing the first chapter ... and kept writing until I had two full chapters written ... about 2800 words.