if you've never stared off into the distance, then your life is a shame

While I still haven't started actually *writing* anything (boo), I did spend a substantial portion of the day *thinking* about it. I have my official membership credentials to Romance Writers of America, which means I have access to all of their online archives...which means that I have a lot of industry-related articles and e-books that I can read in the name of 'education', which is a stellar guilt-free type of procrastination. Some of it was quite interesting, although the economy makes me nervous since any serious downturn could affect book sales.

However, I'm going to try to ignore the business side of the book for awhile and focus on finishing it first. Happily, I had a breakthrough tonight with my hero - I was having trouble figuring out why he wouldn't want to be married, and I didn't really want to do the whole 'former love jilted him, turning him off of marriage' thing because it seems so forced and cliched. I think I've figured out what his deal is, and while it may still be absurd, at least it's character-driven rather than just a convenient plot twist.

The downside is that, in order to make this work, I really need to rewrite the first hundred pages or so. That's actually fine, since the first half of what I currently have is weaker than the second half and could benefit from some change. So I think I'm going to work on rewriting the beginning before I move on to finishing the middle and the end, since I think that will lead to a more cohesive manuscript and make it easier for me to finish the damn thing.

In other news, we had some shrimp teriyaki stirfry tonight, breaking the steak streak. Never fear, loyal readers - I'm sure there is steak in the v. near future. Perhaps not tomorrow - but I'm going to Des Moines tomorrow to do some shopping, which should be fun. Now, though, I'm going to go to bed - my father says I have to be ready to go by 10:30 tomorrow morning, and since I haven't gotten out of bed before 10:30 since getting home, that could be a challenge. I love being unemployed!