I've been going through a story gestation process, trying to speed this one up over the six months that I can finally admit it took last time. I looked at the outline that I had written for the Rome novel, then at the exercise I did yesterday, and futzed around with it, adding stuff, deleting stuff, and coming up with an approximation of what the story will be.

And then I had the bright notion - time to steep it in my "voice", which means putting the chick-lit spin on it but keeping the details on target. Did a bit of that at the orthodontists this morning, and will finish up now.

But the really interesting thing I've gotten, from reading emails and listening to the kids play WarCraft in the other room is, life is messy. I have a tendency to put hospital corners on the beds of my novels, rather than leaving them in all their rumpled and hopefully semen-stained glory to tell the tale, and it's taken me four novels to come to that conclusion. I don't know how long it will take for me to allow myself to think messy, but this novel will be a step along that road.

And then, who knows. Mayhem. Murder. Blood spatters. Who knows where this messy wallowing will take me? In the meantime, I'll be taking a lighter side of the messy side of things. I think it'll be more interesting.

But what a thing to learn about myself on a Monday morning.