The bad thing about being out of town for a few days is that no sooner did I start getting my overflowing in-box under control than it got a chance to get out of control again. I can only imagine what it will be like when I go away for a whole week in October (and I doubt I'll take my computer with me).
Today is proving to be delightfully cool and rainy. The forecast was for upper 90s and sun. I guess I'll see on the noon news if they've revised that. This is the kind of weather that makes me want to bake, but I don't really have baking ingredients. I went shopping at the quasi farmer's market store yesterday, so I have tons of produce. However, I'm almost out of milk, I think I'm low on flour, and I don't have cream for making scones. I was planning a grocery excursion after physical therapy tomorrow, but I didn't realize that today would turn out to be a baking kind of day. I have some butter, so I might be tempted to make shortbread if the day continues like this.
But I should probably be working instead of baking, as I've now analyzed what needs to be fixed in the first 20,000 words of this book. I don't think it needs major work, just a few tweaks. I'm still struggling with a synopsis, though. It may end up being very high-level, more like the back-cover copy on a book. I realized that I'm doing an odd rendition of the heroic journey with this book. There's no one call to adventure. The turning point that initially changes the heroine's life and sets her on the path to where all this other stuff happens occurs before the book begins, so there's no real "ordinary world" segment. That part is more about her discovering the new normal, since her life is already changing when things happen to really change it. But once she's in this new normal, other calls to adventure start happening, but they're gradual, and that means there's no real refusal of the call. It's more a series of "assignments," the first one relatively easy and then gradually intensifying until she realizes she's in deep enough that she has to make a choice. That means the call to adventure overlaps the "tests, enemies and allies" part, and the real threshold crossing will occur at the "inmost cave/ordeal" phase midway through.
On the other hand, I have a title, and I think I have titles for a trilogy.
Funny thing from ArmadilloCon: There was a pediatrics conference in the same hotel. Someone at our con was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of the TARDIS and the words "You never forget your first Doctor." The pediatricians took it an entirely different way, apparently not recognizing the TARDIS but thinking in terms of being someone's first doctor. I said that we need to find a pediatrician who is also a Doctor Who fan and make sure he/she has that shirt because then it really would work on multiple levels.
There were some really cute pediatricians and once I even managed to be on an elevator full of them, but alas, they were all wearing wedding rings.
"Dark and gritty" still seem to be the watchwords for upcoming books, much to my dismay. A book I threw to the other end of the sofa at page 60 was being widely hailed as brilliant and is apparently even an award finalist. I must be so out of touch with reality that I'm in danger of creating my own pocket universe.
"I'm so out of touch with reality that I've created my own pocket universe" would make a good t-shirt slogan.
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