Energy, Passion, and Debate

"Nothing keeps a relationship on its toes so much as lively debate.” I saw this quote here, and I fully agree. What’s different about me now from a decade ago is the desire for debate—debates take energy and passion, and I'm too old to drum up much of either.

But that’s what keeps my writing partnership with Larry on its toes. Our novel is one of only a few things (including my husband of course J) that I have the energy to be truly passionate about, and we have a great degree of lively debate. It’s lessened a bit now that we’re down to the fine tuning, yet debates still crop up.

There was a scene where the surfer cop dressed as a woman and hitchhiked to his destination. Somebody was supposed to leave him clothes to change into but forgot to leave shoes, so the cop—wearing jeans, flannel, and hooker heels—raced through the hilly woods to the hideout.

Then there was the porch-swing scene where a transient shows up at the hideout. It really was one of my favorite scenes, but it had to be sacrificed for word count. My description was so spot on you could smell him!

I didn’t want to take either of them out, and I spat a bit while defending them. But in the bigger picture, they really didn’t contribute. We had to get the cop to the destination faster and hitchhiking wouldn’t work. We had to get to the end scene faster, and the transient slowed plot development.

Larry and I are now coming up on some of the more problematic chapters, and I’m sure there’s plenty of debate left. We both know changes have to be made, and we just need to agree on them.

That’s what keeps our writing partnership fresh!