i'm gonna try with all my might to make this storyline come true

I'm sure I've used this title before, but I happened to listen to "I Can't Hold Back" while I was working on my book this afternoon, and it just seemed to fit. I had kind of a weird, difficult day; not that it was bad by any stretch, but I'm not in an easy place with my manuscript and it's kind of bleeding over onto everything else.

First things first -- I managed to drag myself out of bed at a totally respectable hour, shower, throw a load of clothes in the washing machine, run to the grocery store, pick up some tings, and come home to make myself a delicious breakfast of french toast and really strong coffee. The french toast turned out v. well, particularly considering that I didn't have the right kind of thick-sliced bread for it; my trick is to add a dash of vanilla to the egg and milk mixture, which adds just a little bit of something perfect to the mix. After eating breakfast, I cleaned up, folded my laundry, procrastinated, and then sat down to focus on the book.

I put in a couple of solid hours with the manuscript, but I didn't write anything. Instead, I realized that I desperately need to take a step back and try to see the whole picture; because I changed my mind about Madeleine's character halfway through the first draft, there are some scenes that no longer work, some that could work with a bit of revising, some new scenes that I need to fit in someplace, and a whole bunch of different scenes that I need to write and insert. So, to put it bluntly, it's a mess. There are bits of brilliance within the cesspool, which cheered me up a bit, but on the whole I need to figure out where I'm going before I write another word, or I risk wasting my time or losing the threads.

So, I wrote out a card for each scene that currently exists, and started taking notes on what needs to change. I'm nowhere near an answer, but I'm taking the first critical steps. Hopefully I can spend some quality time with my cards this week (I hold-punched them and made them into a tiny little 'notebook', so I can carry them around and move them around as I see fit), so that I can start writing and making forward progress this weekend.

Anyway, I stopped working to watch the Oscars with Vidya (aka Vidius Chandicus, the gracious Chandlord). I didn't watch all of them with her, as she was late returning from an event and she called me just after I had put sweet potato fries in the oven that I was loathe to abandon. But, I sped over shortly after the "In Memoriam" segment (is it just me or did v. few people die this year? It's like they had to throw Michael Jackson in to get a swell of applause from the audience). So, we caught the major awards together while eating pizza from Pizza Hut (mmm). Even better, we watched the entire, final Barbara Walters Special, which was totally ridiculous as usual, but was even more ridiculous because she showed clips from every single special she did over the past thirty years. Then, I came home, played on the internet, and now need to go to bed. Goodnight!