Why I love the delete key

Everything was going great tonight. I came home from work, snuggled on the couch with my dogs, and watched a few episodes of Arrested Development on DVD took a nap in front of the TV before booting up my laptop for another night of revisions to my WIP.

Of course, before I got started on my book, a little thing called REAL LIFE got in the way, and my pleasant life turned into a total crapfest. An email here, a reality check there, and before I knew it I was in a BAD MOOD.

My husband tried to console me. My doggies tried to cuddle me. Even M&Ms couldn't do the trick. The only thing that made me feel better was editing my WIP.

My characters are way luckier than I am. They get a delete key. Sure, bad stuff still happens to them...admittedly way worse than the stuff that happens to me. But their fates aren't totally sealed until my book gets published. Until then, people can rise from the dead, boyfriends can decide not to cheat on their girlfriends after all, and that cute girl across the street can turn out to be just a normal chick instead of a crazy psycho demon spawn intent on destroying all of mankind.*

And even when the bad stuff stays around, at least it sounds pretty. In real life, someone getting suspended because they did something bad at work (not what happened to me, at all. I'm a mostly model employee.) might sound something like this:

We're disappointed in you, Bob. Take the rest of the day off, without pay. Come back ready to work.  

But in my WIP, that scenario sounds like this:

“But,” he interrupted me, “you must work in the allocation room for one month to make up for your crime, and to help you detach yourself from this miserable regard you have for life. Life would not exist without death – the sooner you realize that, the better.” He looked me over one last time. “You will also be suspended for the night, without pay. Come back tomorrow, to the allocation room.”

 Clearly, things are way cooler in novels. So when I'm having a bad day, I'm going to edit my novel - I can't revise my own life, so I might as well revise someone else's. 

*These events may or may not be pulled from my book. Mostly not. Kaia really is too busy for a boyfriend, and if she had one, he'd be too busy to cheat on her. Plus then she'd kick his ass.