When "Telling" Might Be Okay

The problem with making a huge mental shift in the background of a story is that it takes a while to let it permeate the way I think about the story. I did some of the tweaking yesterday, then realized I might need to write a new scene. I could just mention the events that would have happened in that scene in a later scene, but that would be "telling" not "showing." Then again, telling isn't always wrong if it conveys information in a quick and easy way rather than dragging it out when there isn't much drama in the actual scene. And it helps if the telling is going to be necessary anyway to not have to go through the actual scene and then talk about it.

And now I think I've talked myself out of writing the actual scene. I need to mentally go through it so I'll know exactly what happened, but I can adjust the next scene to show the character still dealing with the emotions as he tells others what happened. Yeah, that's it …

But I do think I'm back on track and hope to get some work done today. I have errands to run and music to practice, but I don't have to teach children's choir (yay!).

I'm still kind of exhausted from dance last night, but I realized at the end of the class that I could easily be the mother of the other people in the class -- without even being a particularly young mother. Just being there and more or less keeping up with it is something of a triumph. I may not be able to do all the things they do, but there aren't a lot of people my age who are still dancing regularly. At least, I keep telling myself that. I'm going to have to make a decision about dance this summer, since the class ends right as my book comes out (in fact, the last class is my release date) and my teacher is taking the summer off, so I get the "serious" dance teacher again. I liked him last summer and learned a lot, but it was stressful because I'm a perfectionist and a teacher's pet type, so I just about killed myself trying to be sure I could please him.

I can't believe I'm already thinking about summer plans. Where has this year gone?