Yay! I finished Chapter 6 yesterday! The Dare is complete. Of course, I think Chapter 6, as it stands now, sucks big, moldy rocks, but at least I have something down. It's strange. In the past week or two, I've started to pull away from the need to revise as I go and move into the need to just finish a draft to get the ideas down and see where they take me. I'm starting to feel less of a need for crits right now because I just want to focus on finishing and I'll fix it later. It feels wierd. I'm so used to this need for perfection in my writing. And it's slipping away. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. It was good because I just forced myself through chapters 5 and 6 without paralyzing myself because I didn't particularly care for the writing I was doing in them. But I've been able to write better the first time through because of a need for perfection. I guess this attitude may depend on a lot of things. My need for perfection in writing is usually highest and easiest to appease when the ideas are flowing a little better and I'm confident in what I'm doing. That was not the case in February. So maybe I've just found out how I deal with writing when my confidence slips or I run into a bit of a block. Very interesting.

By the way, I've come up with a little ditty based on the website I posted yesterday:

A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but diamonds are a girl's best friend.

Now becomes

A casket and grave may be quite continental, but diamonds are the dead's best friend.

And it's stuck in my head. At least it's catchy.