Odds and ends

Finally, some 70,000 words in, I have written my way to the emotional centerpiece of the not!drawerfic! (I write wildly out of order, so I actually had said scenes written back in March.) That centerpiece also serves as the climax for Part 2, and now I just have to do some cleanup before I move on to Parts 3 and 4. While right now they are both meant to be about equal in length to the first two parts (so, yes, if that works out this will be 140,000 words long, dear god), but I have a feeling they may wind up collapsing in on themselves into a lumpy, overgrown single part. We'll see how interesting I can make certain events, and also how much I feel like wallowing in angst.

Of course, the deadline I gave myself for completion of Part 2 was, um, tomorrow. Fail. Maybe by the end of the month, softstepshoes?

*

Today I happened to take a closer look at the sheet of paper my skating teacher gave me this weekend, which is a list of all the requirements for each of the ISI levels my rink offers classes in (with my current accomplishments checked off). They are, I noticed, a bit different from the standard ISI elements. Like, for example, the requirement that to pass each Freestyle level, one must skate a solo program, to music, featuring all the elements in that level.

...I'm not sure I'm ready for that. NOT AT ALL.

They also have fairly intense passing standards once you get out of the basic skills levels (or at least what I would consider intense). Like eight revolutions on the two-foot spin in Freestyle 1. (Eight! I'm lucky if I can manage three!) Or the forward "arabesque" (it's really a spiral) needing to go for six times the skater's height, which for me means a little under 33 feet.

I think the "free leg at hip height" might actually be in the real rulebook, though. That is going to be...a challenge.