I got maybe five hours of sleep last night, between lying awake an hour after I went to bed thinking about the changes I could make, and then waking up an hour before the alarm and thinking some more.

Beverly, I like your suggestion, though there's this part of me that wants to fix Lucy NOW, because I've got this writers conference in three weeks, and it just breaks my heart to think of not having something to market to the editors and agents there. I'm not so insane as to think I could completely rework a 100,000-word novel in three weeks, but I could certainly manage the first three chapters, and that's as much of a partial as anyone ever wants. Then I'd keep working at it so that if anyone asked for the full, hopefully I'd have it ready by then.

I know that's crazy talk, but, but....the editors and agents, they're RIGHT THERE. And if they work with what your write at all, they ALWAYS ask for a partial, and you get to put "requested material" on it and bypass the slushpile! t /impatient

OK. Anyway. Since the changes I'm planning for Lucy impact Anna, the least I'm going to do is sit down today and do a rough outline of the new Lucy. And then, well, we'll see.

For now I need to feed a baby and get ready for the Seattle RWA meeting--maybe I can get some more ideas there.

I speak as a complete publishing amateur, of course. But I know what happens when I slog away at something while another project is on fire in my head. The work I do on the primary project is dull, and by the time I get to the second, the fire's dimmed or gone out. So I say, let Anna simmer for a bit and work on Lucy, at least short-term.

I talked about it with some of the more seasoned writers at the meeting today, lamenting that I hadn't had this epiphany several months ago. They all said, "Go ahead and start editing, and at your editor and agent appointments, tell them you've completed a manuscript and are X% through a major revision that you expect to complete by Y date." The response will probably be either, "Go ahead and send us your first three chapters," or "Just submit it when you're finished, and make sure to remind us where we met."

So I'm going to go for it. I think it'll make both books stronger. I'm going to get started today as soon as I've finished my day's quota on my more immediately paying projects.

Good on you.

This bells topic has been really inspirational...I have a few drabbles:

Alarm Bells

She gasps upright in bed, her entire skull ringing with the fire alarm. Her eyes are pulsating in time with its screams. Where's the light, where's her shoes, where's the door?

Yank open the door, rush into the hallway, pause in confusion. Which way is best? No one in the hallway, God, is everyone already out? Another door opens, another resident steps out, wearing a robe and slippers, yawning, pausing to lock the door. How can she be so calm?

She strolls past, as other doors begin to open, people casually wander by, like they were walking to breakfast. "Don't worry", says one, noticing her wide eyed stare, "you'll get used to them. Stupid drunks pull the fire alarm all the time".

As she leaves the building, she notices the broken beer bottle underneath the red pull station. Her heart slows, slightly.

Mediation Chime

We gather as we do every week, making small talk, finding our place on the floor, setting up our cushions just so. We settle into place, adjusting knees, creaking our necks, clearing our throats so that we don't cough and disrupt everyone else. The coffee machine begins its low mutterings for the after-meditation discussion.

At the front of the room he sits facing us, smiling, chatting with one or two folks as we get ready. The delicate hammer and bowl sit beside him. As we quiet down, he picks up the hammer, looks over the room once more, and looks down at the bowl. He strikes it once, sharply, and the rich warm sound rings through the room, calling us to awaken.

We breathe.

This one needed its own post.

The Bells of Mourning

It is sunny, and cold. The hearse moves through the small town, my family and I following behind. My family minus one.

The white church at the top of the hill is the one I attended every Sunday when I lived at home, and my parents still attend. We get out of the car and the pallbearers, cousins and friends, gather behind the hearse to carry out their function. I worry about the many stairs, but they carry my sister gracefully, carefully, heads down.

My mother reaches for me. I hold my arm around her shoulder and take my father's hand. We follow my sister up the stairs, to begin saying goodbye. The bells ring out slowly, the bells of mourning following us into this ritual, this remembering, this farewell

All three are very nice, Sophie, but I especially like the second one.

Here's a wee one:

A chill runs up his spine before he consciously registers the dread sound. He locates it, and backs away off the road as the shrouded figures shamble past. The bell, tied with a bit of twine about the neck of the first figure, tolls dully at every step. Muffled in layers of cloth wound and fastened haphazardly about them, all features that might still linger beneath those wrappings hidden from view, and ringing their warning as they go, the lepers pass. And village folk and crofter alike stand aside and grant them passage, hearts torn between pity and fear.

Another bells. Mostly because I haven't played with her in a while.

She strolls down the street, registering, but not noticing, the hurried pedestrians along the buildings, seeking the safety of their homes. She revels in the utter lack of any feeling toward them—protectiveness, duty, pity, hunger—all washed away in her new-found freedom. Nowhere she has to be, no-one she needs to call, nothing she has to do, apart from eat and be indoors come morning. Then, she stops dead, as the bells began to ring, first from behind her, then all around. There is one other thing she has to do: Know when to leave.

These are all so cool. I had no idea there were so many bells in our lives until this topic came up.

Topic suggestion for Teppy, not for the next one because it's kinda similar, but someday could we do drums?

Massive re-write of Lucy commenced. I've pushed the beginning of the story back from 1810 to 1809, since it makes critical plot points in Anna more plausible (see discussion in Natter). I completed eradicated a character I adored (Cordelia) because I realized she was just stealing space that could go to characters who are actually in conflict with Lucy. The hero has gone from a plain nouveau riche gentleman to a baronet whose maternal grandfather was an earl, though he's still nouveau riche. It's still in first person, but I'm putting some sections in the hero's first person POV so we'll have his perspective too.

It's weird. All my previous edits have been polishes and tweaks, and now I'm changing things that felt nearly as immutable as real history.

Congratulations, Susan. I hear you on the nearly immutable.

You know in school, when you memorized a poem? Or in Sunday School when you memorized Bible verses for a program? And when you lost your place halfway through, you couldn't pick up where you left off, you had to start over? That's the trouble I've had with mine. The way the first quarter of the book is written has made deep grooves in the surface of my brain and there's no way I can deviate from those grooves on my own.

I have no trouble deep-sixing whole swathes of text, I'm not really going to fight for phrasing or even characters that are really backstory. I once lost an entire third of a poem on an editor's sayso, and the resultant poem was transcendent! Well, to me, anyway. The editor was startled at how easily I slashed my precious words. So this isn't that sort of reluctance, it's just I can't tell the forest from the trees. Deb? Do you have the name and address of a good book doctor?