Dear Reader,
Word Raccoon is not happy with me. I kicked her off the sun porch early this morning, before the sun was up. I knew what a day of research and reading I had ahead of me, and I wanted none of her shenanigans.
And lured by plenteous portions of her favorite beverage and snacks, she mostly stayed out of my way. But she must’ve been reading over my shoulder because she asked me to leave the keyboard a couple of times to rough out poems when I (we?) read particularly striking lines.
Having had only one quick lunch/supper break, at five WR begged to go to the gym, to do ANYTHING ELSE besides sit.
I agreed, but only because I had a dilemma to take to the gym. Having just read some of the material I have been avoiding or only lightly reading for five years now (so my notes tell me), I had now made myself read, take notes, form opinions, and come to conclusions backed by evidence.
WR rolled her eyes and said sure, we want to do right by the material but WE ARE WRITING FICTION! And guess what? We’re not even getting graded on it!
That was beside the point because having come so close to feeling like “Ok, that’s it. Case closed,” I happened upon a source section I had previously ignored, thinking it unimportant.
Reader, it was not.
Worse, it (redacted) the very (redacted) I had supposed, thus collapsing (or possibly collapsing) my thesis.
There was another thorn I had forgotten about that came back to mind, so I took them both to the gym. Actually, as I was backing the vehicle out of the driveway to go to the gym a scene involving a woman I had thought of one way suggested itself to me that solved the issue.
Whew.
And, on the way home from the gym, a way to reconcile the other bit of information came to me, if, when I wrote down my final thoughts, that’s how I wanted to handle it.
I haven’t entirely decided, though I’m close.
Thankfully, I recall that I have a novel day that I need to make up in September for a day I ditched in Novel August.
I’m going to need it.
But I’ve done the necessary work now, and earlier a portion of one of the letters I need to write started coming to me out of nowhere so I have notes for it written down. Whew. That’s the most difficult work done.
Still TONS of work ahead, but now I can proceed (almost) without roadblocks, once I decide once and for all my viewpoint.
Today convinced me that the breadth of the book is just as ambitious as I thought it was, and that having gone from “I cannot possibly do this” yesterday to “Oh, wait, this is kind of fun,” I truly do think there is an end in sight.
Just no time soon.
In the meantime, could someone come take this raccoon for a walk? She’s threatening to unplug my laptop.
Drema