Standing in Water

I'm alive. After some SERIOUSLY wacky dreams (always with dead bodies popping up--must be the writer-thing, envisioning potential plots) and fevers hovering in the 105 range, I am semi-lucid. Of course, now Baby Girl has strep, and Demon Baby has strep AND the Type B resistant flu (which is what I had). And it appears they have now given ME strep. I am wiping everything down with bleach. But basically, I have lived the last six days of my life in my king-sized bed with sick children and sick me. My son holds his breath when he pokes his head in occasionally to see if we're all still alive. Um . . . in the fine print of "things they don't tell you in writers' school"--no sick days. It's very tough . . . you don't write/work, you don't get paid. The one thing I miss about having a real job.

In the mdist of this, my hot water heater blew, leaving me with no water and me standing in two inches of water in my garage trying to rig something up until a plumber could get there. No water. Me. Three kids. Sick. No water. To the rescue comes my friend's boyfriend, who, with a four-dollar part FIXES my water heater. I could kiss the ground he and my friend walk on. She cooked dinner for my kids while I rested, he fixed the water heater.

Which brings me to writing.

Sometimes a work in progress will seem like it is leaking water all over the place. It's a god awful mess, flooding your brain and your life, and the first inclination might be to get a whole new work in progress. A new water heater.

But sometimes it's a four-dollar part.

I've noticed lately, that a lot of my critiques are really structured that way. All of THIS is working, but this VERY OBVIOUS flood over here isn't. But there's a simple fix . . . and it just costs four dollars.

The trick is discerning when it's a four-dollar part and when it's the water heater. Which is where I am right now. I have a couple of things I'm working on. I know they're not working as is. Something's not right. And now I'm assessing. Four-dollar part? Or the water heater. My assessment is based on:

• Do I love the characters (if, yes, then $4)
• Is there a complete story to their character arcs or are these just character sketches (if it's just a sketch then it's the water heater)
• Is there a beginning, middle, and end (if the answer is no, it's the water heater)
• Is there something really different here, something for readers to remember (if yes, then $4)

And so on. Right now, I guess you could say that in all my manuscripts, I am standing in water, with the flu, trying to decide what to do about the flood.

Thoughts? How do YOU know when it's a $4 part and when it's time to get a new water heater?