Progress and Monday Blah

Apparently I am incapable of getting my crap together on a rainy Monday morning.  I strolled in a whopping 20 minutes past when I usually do and am totally missing the staff meeting where they are unveiling the web work I was doing last week.  I was not about to bust up in there ten minutes into the meeting.  We have apparently become the Seattle of the South.  Looks like we’re in for another interminable week of rain.  The dogs have been giving me miserable “Mommy, make it stop!” looks.  It’s just heartbreaking. Today is the kind of day you stay in your jammies and have lots of tea and read.  But of course, it’s Monday, so that means Evil Day Job.

Pot and I are brainstorming this morning about Conall.  One aspect I did a poor job of developing in the current story, I’ve decided to take away from Conall and save for some other character in another book.  Which pretty significantly changes who Conall is.  So we’re brainstorming about backstory and how he got where he is in the current story and why Marley is the right woman for him.  We’re making some pretty good strides.  I’m revising his backstory and making his best friend a bigger and more important character.  And I’ve come up with more potential scenes that make Marley a more active character instead of passive.

I’m seeing the story take shape and it’s different but the same, if that makes any sense.  A lot of the same stuff happens, but for different reasons and under slightly different circumstances.  For the most part, when I sit down to do this, it’s going to be a fresh draft rather than an effort to revise the text as it’s written.  I’m less constrained that way.  If I try to edit the existing text, then I won’t be able to see alternatives.

Anyway, I feel like I am finally starting to maybe get somewhere with my thought process on how to fix this book.  And hey, good news, the hives cleared up, so maybe I’m on the right track.  For the sake of my sanity, I’m backing my NPI daily goal back to 350 words a day from 500.