I'm feeling pretty good at day's end. Not bad for someone who spent most of his waking hours either behind the wheel of the Esquart or in front of his monitor. Bleary-eyed is a good way to describe my state. Good, but blurry.

I'm feeling like I'm getting caught up on all my writing at last. I spent all morning tweaking, revising, rephrasing, rewording, repunctuating, re-everything-ing to the first three chapters of The Prodigal Sons. If those three chapters aren't as close to perfect as I can make them, well, I'll have to eat my Buddha bead.

I really added some great stuff to the opening scene, where William wakes up in the middle of a winter night and sees his wife packing all her clothes into garbage bags and walking out the door. The goal was to add lots more description, of both people and the setting, something I never do well on the first or second draft, and to also add more emotional depth to a character.

The emotions I added by mostly getting inside the heads of my two main charaters, showing their thoughts and thought processes and memories. It was a good exercise, and a great warmup for the romance novel, which will be emotions jacked up to 11.

Speaking of, I got pretty pumped up about working on that today when I dumped the synopsis into what had previously just been chapter one, and I mapped out all 14 chapters! Bam! That book is going to take shape FAST. It's already almost 6,000 words, so I still have a bit of a NaNoWriMo buffer, so I can finish the Wannoshay novel by Sunday, as well as revise the Buddha story... Gotta have a NaNoWriMo buffer, y'know.

I also jotted down my roster for my historical baseball fantasy story -- I've got a killer lineup! Houdini's lost brother is at third, Buddha's reincarnation is at first, Jose Mendez on the mound, Carrie Nation at second, and Mack the alien (or-is-he?) in center... I really must shut up about this story until it's written.

Speaking of the round bald fella, I was hoping to get to the revision of "Gunning for the Buddha" today, but I simply ran out of time. I'm going to read my draft(s) a bit more tonight before I crash. Perhaps if I place the manuscript under my pillow, the revisions will seep into my fatigued brain... It's worth a try. Didn't that work for Linus of "Peanuts"? Later!

Now Playing:
"Surfacing," Sarah McLachlan

Today's Words:
1,500 or so

Today's Quote:
Back in December, on the morning Marcy left, William had been pulled out of sleep by the scuffing sound of drawers opening. It was still dark, a half-hour before chores, a winter morning when all the world felt dead and frozen. He opened his eyes and saw his wife of four years stuffing as many of her belongings as she could into black garbage bags. William tried to convince himself that he was still dreaming, even as Marcy slipped out of the bedroom door with two bulging plastic bags in each hand. When she began creaking down the steps, he forced himself up and out of the bed, his heart suddenly pounding and his breath catching in his throat.

No way, he thought to himself, his head feeling thick and groggy. He padded down the cold steps, avoiding the squeaky ones without conscious thought, not wanting to wake his parents or his grandmother. I’m imagining this. Dreaming.