I'm Melting!

I'm about to wilt from the heat. We're on track to have the worst summer on record, and I'm not a summer person in the best of circumstances. Yesterday we hit 110 degrees, and it was still 100 at 10 p.m. It's supposed to be worse today. Since my Internet connection is upstairs in the office in a space that gets very warm in the afternoon, I'm doing all my online stuff in the morning, then shutting off the office and staying downstairs the rest of the day. On the upside, that means I'm getting more work done since I can't get sidetracked by playing online. Today I may move from my sofa to my bedroom, since the bedroom is the darkest, coolest room in the house and they're encouraging people to save electricity because the power grid is being strained. I can bump up the thermostat a few degrees by working downstairs, and I can bump it up even further and feel just as cool by working in the bedroom. Or I may give up on working in the afternoon and instead work tonight, since it's my last free Wednesday before choir starts again. I do have to venture out briefly to return some library books and pick up one that's on hold, but I'm definitely driving, not walking.

I'm remembering why I've written most of my books in the fall/winter.

The book I'm currently working on is a departure for me because instead of it being a single, first-person point of view, it's multiple points of view in third person. That means I have to deal with different perspectives. One thing that's been particularly interesting to work with is the way a particular character appears depending on the perspective. First, we see how one character who knows her well thinks about her. Then we meet her from another character's point of view. He knows the first character and has heard what she has to say about this other character, so he's viewing her through that lens. And then finally we see things from her perspective and what she thinks about things and about herself. She's someone who puts up a very conscious and deliberate front and tries to make people see her a certain way, and while it's not really fake, it's not not the whole story, and there are chinks in her armor.

It's tricky, and I guess that's one reason why I'm in the sixth draft of this book, and each draft has involved several passes. I'm mostly in the "fixing the plot" pass now, and I know I'll have more work to do on it. I hope it turns out to be worth it.