Writers I Know

Now I'm down to revising the part of the book that really needs rewriting. I feel pretty good about the rest of the book up to this point. It needs fine tuning, but I think the story works. I hope to finish the rewrites tonight or tomorrow, and then I'm giving myself a kind of spring break next week. I'll visit my parents, catch up on business stuff (like finishing my taxes and doing massive amounts of filing), muck out the house, and maybe even get some fun in, though that may be tricky to arrange, as it's Easter week and being in the choir means that's busy time. And then after Easter, I'll do a serious editing pass, when I dig into each scene to make sure I'm conveying everything that needs to be there, touch up the descriptions, and tighten the wording.

I gave myself a little time off from the rewriting last night (since my brain needed a break) to watch my recording of the recent production of And Then There Were None that aired on Lifetime this week. They seem to be picking up what A&E did in the 90s in airing the big British productions that PBS doesn't get. Earlier this year they did a good War and Peace miniseries. This was a two-parter that was very well done, if a bit grim (it follows the book rather than the stage play, so if you're familiar with Agatha Christie, you know what that means). The cast was excellent (though it took some getting used to seeing "Poldark" clean-shaven and with short hair), and it was very atmospheric. I love those "there's a house party in a remote place, and people start dying" stories.

Sunday night is going to be a night of "writers I know on TV." Jane Espenson wrote this week's Once Upon a Time episode, and while I haven't met her in person, I've interviewed her via e-mail and wrote an essay for a book she edited, so she's at least aware of my existence. Then my friend Paul Cornell (who's written for Doctor Who) wrote the episode of Elementary that's on Sunday night, which is a new schedule for that series. Paul's one of my convention buddies, and he's even ridden in my car, which led to something of a slapstick routine. My car doesn't have automatic anything, so I find that the easiest way to unlock the door for a passenger is to go to the passenger side with my key and unlock it. Due to a combination of Britishness (since they drive on the opposite side) and gentlemanly manners (not being used to a lady going to open the door for a gentleman), when I went to unlock the passenger side, Paul then went around and tried to get in the driver's side. I'm not sure how we did it, but we went around on that a couple of times until I finally told him that if he really wanted to drive, maybe I'd let him, but he had to be able to do a stick shift with what would be the wrong hand for him. In his defense, this was at the end of a convention, and he was very tired. So Sunday night, I'll get to applaud his credit appearing on the screen.

Now the skies are getting darker, which means it should be good writing weather for me, as long as we don't get the kind of hail they got elsewhere in the area yesterday morning.