Well, my agent thought it was a little too much of a good thing and that turning CH 1 into CH 5 introduces the primary incident in that chapter a little too late in the narrative. I see her point even though it means a trip back to the drawing board. I do have a bit of a grace period, however, seeing as she's at the London Book Fair until Wednesday.

::sigh::

I really thought I'd nailed it-- adrenaline rush, I suppose.

Well the nice thing about revising manuscripts in the electronic age, is if you don't like the revision, the old version is right there there to try again with. As someone who started out with typewriters, I still appreciate the invention of word processing, even after all these decades. (Part of it is that I have a minor disability that makes writing legibly extremely hard work, so I learned to touch type at 11. Which now that I think of it, most people probably won't see why that was a big deal because kids now learn to keyboard at the same age they learn to read. Or before. I just made myself feel really old.)

I learned to type on my father's manual Smith Corona. My college manual typewriter is in my storage shed. I may need to arrange to be buried with it.

Gud, Yentl really didn't occur to me, but I think the story sounds great, and I love the use of "Cog" as a name and as a metaphor.

Take your time, Barb, and think about it before you dive in again, especially if you've got a few extra days.

Got my song contest evaluation! It was not woeful, so I need not lie on the floor extraneously. Mid-range scores, with an 8 in imagery/poetics. And the specific breakdown was really helpful; I'm already working out how to incorporate the suggestions into the lyric I'm currently working on.

Liese, that's great news about the feedback!

Gud, I'm looking forward to reading Cog.

I spent so much time revising last week that I'm back feeling like new writing is a reach for me. This plus the pollen make for a determined, slightly foggy, determined thing.

Good luck Barb!

Need some gut reactions, sil vous plait. I'm playing with this scene and I'm trying to get the feel of it right and no, I'm not exactly what the feel is other than I'll know it when I get there. I know it reads a little disjointed and that's deliberate, which becomes clear within the first couple of sentences. Basically, I want to know if this character's weariness and desperation is coming through amidst the disjointedness.

##

The French Quarter August 2006

Gabriel clenched one end of the tourniquet between his teeth and pulled tight, rapidly opening and closing his left fist and slapping the fingers of his right hand along the crook of his elbow, pausing only to feel for the telltale rise of the vein. Praying for it to come up faster, sooner…

There… there—

He unclenched his jaw, the filled syringe he'd been holding between his teeth dropping into his palm. Quickly, he adjusted his grip and plunged the needle into the vein, his head dropping back against the weathered brick wall of the alley as the juice burned through his bloodstream and the familiar euphoria washed over him, ebbing and flowing in time with the rowdy strains of "Iko Iko" that drifted from some nearby club.

Look at my king all dressed in red Iko iko an nay

"I bet you five dollars he'll kill you dead," he sang along, in his head, he thought, until he heard the cheer and answering chant of "Jockomo feena nay!" from the group weaving through the light at the far end of the alley, headed toward the noise and unabashed rowdiness of Bourbon. The never ending party of the Quarter had returned, but tonight, they had a feel to them. Celebrating survival. Shooting a big, civic finger at that fucking storm. That mean-assed bitch had blown into town a year ago, done her damage, then left them scrabbling in her left-behind shit like the goddamned Lord of the Flies. But they were still here. Still here and not going anywhere. Not anytime soon, no sir.

Sweat trailed along his scalp and around his ear, cold and sinuous as a snake. Now why had he thought that? He fucking hated snakes. Blinking rapidly, he tried to dispel the image, rubbing his back against the rough bricks to get rid of the feeling of something dark slithering down his neck and along his arm, leaving a dank, clammy trail in its wake, like it'd just come sliding up from the bayou.

The syringe dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers to join the rest of the crap littering the narrow alley—little more than a dark corridor, really, between two ancient buildings, just wide enough to hold the shadows, perfect for a quickie, whether it was with someone—or something—you wouldn't normally be caught dead with out there, even in the hedonistic surroundings of the Quarter. Their remains lay underfoot, a mélange of cigarette butts and crushed Styrofoam cups from Daquiri's and wrappers and used condoms that tripped up the tourists stupid enough to try to use the alley as a shortcut. Why was he thinking of all this shit? Why was he remembering the sting of cold water against his face—the cold that was so alien to New Orleans in August—as he'd fought against the wind and rain, trying to convince folks to leave, that he'd drive them to the Dome, to the Convention Center, to anywhere that wasn't where the storm was trying to beat her way into their house… the House of the Rising Sun, the Crescent City, the Big Easy…

So easy… It had once been so easy. It needed to be easy again. Easy was good. Easy was their way of life after all; even when they were working hard, there was a welcome easiness about everything that made it home.

A screaming trumpet line wailed through the heavy, humid air that bathed him in the soothing warmth of home. So warm, even late, late at night, with the shadows and ghosts as his only company. Just like he liked it.

I don't have specific suggestions. I have one very general thought, but it might reflect differences between us as people rather than help you to get where you want to go. I'm going to spoiler font so you can skip it if there is a risk it could do harm.

It seems too long for the feel you are trying to give it. I know you are going for lush, but the particular forlorness I think you are going for needs to be expressed succinctly to give the right feel. I think stuff you are saying explicitly needs to be hinted at. But I could be reading where you want to go wrong.

TB, I see what you're saying and I really thought about going extremely spare with this scene-- and it could be that I'll go back at some point and pare it down, but for the moment, I think I'm going for the extreme hyper-awareness because of how it might play into where the rest of the scene is going.

Thanks for the thought though--since it hews with a possibility I'd considered, I'll definitely keep it in mind.

I would scale it back, if it were me. I'm not getting weariness so much as a kind of wildness, because his thoughts are all over the place, and there is so much description.