As I’ve mentioned in the past, this cover (art by Billy Graham [no, not the evangelist], all rights with current holder) sums up the way life sometimes goes. You think everything’s under control but there’s still a big robot with an axe waiting.
Which is to say that while this week was productive, it should have been better. But we had to take the car in twice to deal with an engine problem (still under warranty, yay), plus I had one doctor’s appointment and Thursday we had plumbers here. As regular readers know, I work at home, I tackle the contractors. But at least we’re no longer haunted by the sound of dripping taps.
Despite that, I did get 7,000 words added to Southern Discomforts. I stopped about 30 minutes early today because my brain was just shot and I have no idea what comes in the next chapter—it’s at the point that while I’m sort-of following the general outline, a lot of individual scenes weren’t in the previous draft. So far it seems to be working though.
I also finished Home Before Morning, a Vietnam War nurse’s biography which will be a big help in fleshing out Maria, my protagonist. At the moment, though, I feel she’s awkwardly betwixt and between. Not the complete burn-out she was in the previous draft, but if she isn’t a burnout she needs a lot more intensity than she has now. Or she needs to be more burned-out after all. I’ll see how it goes.
And of course I started work on my time-travel book. Nothing terribly spectacular, just some TV and one movie watched. I also added several more movies (groan!) to my list of subgenre viewing.
As my final accomplishment, I mailed off Questionable Minds to a new publisher. Wish it luck.
I probably wouldn’t have worked on any other projects this week even without the intrusions, but the distractions guaranteed I got less done on both. Still, every little bit helps: on to next week!
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