I've not had a spare minute to blog the past month because I've had my nose in a book. The one I just finished writing, that is. It's my second novel and I've been on a self-imposed fast track, staying up late and getting up early and all of this during the last frantic six weeks of the school year. Why? It has to do with trying to get pregnant. No, wait. I'd better back up and explain.
We've all probably heard about women who try and try to get pregnant and eventually give up. They then try adoption, and within a short period of time, they finally get pregnant. Suddenly they have more of a blessing than they bargained for, but that's a whole other story. Well, my first novel has been out there seven months now, trying and trying to get published to no avail. That's with the help of a beloved agent doing her level best to push it. So I decided to throw all my energy into cranking out a second book, with the hopes that that will somehow magically increase my chances of getting the first one published, or maybe even both.
I know the metaphor is a stretch, but I can't help it. Writing books makes you weird like that.
So I decided to give myself a day off, get completely away from it, do something normal for a change. Here's how it went.
An authentic voice told me to go shopping because the mood in our fridge was empty. That set up an inner conflict due to the absence of a theme for dinner. After a dialogue with my husband I was able to weave several strands together, nicely layered, that set the tone for the entire week. The plot thickened when the setting on our street became snarled with traffic, and two shallow characters held us all up with an outer conflict, commonly called a fender bender. My journey ended with a climax when the grocery clerk overcharged me and I had to query her about the validity of her facts. When I said her numbers weren't right for my list, she lost it, and I fled the scene. My synopsis of the afternoon didn't hold my husband's interest.
Maybe I should just get started on that third book........
