Today was great for friendship and not so great for productivity; I think I'm obsessing too much over the story, and it's starting to get counterproductive. First things first -- I rolled out of bed a little before ten and took an inordinate amount of time getting ready because I decided to blowdry my hair (which is a worthwhile endeavor given the end result, but it's a not-insignificant investment of time). Upon finishing my primping, I sped to Sunnyvale to have brunch at Chris and Natasha's place. Heather and Salim came as well, which was super fun; since all of us but Natasha were in India together, we have a ton of entertaining memories, and Natasha is cool enough to put up with us reminiscing. But, it's mostly not reminiscing, which is probably why we still hang out -- some of these 'summer friends' die when you're back in the real world because you have nothing else in common, but happily this group has just continued to grow.
So anyway, Natasha made a delicious breakfast strata (what I would probably call a 'casserole') a mini blueberry muffins, and Chris cut up a bunch of fruit and made a salad of it with vanilla yogurt and cinnamon (Natasha made him cut the grapes in half, which was super cute). They also had a v. large bottle of champagne, so we sat around drinking mimosas, eating, and oddly watching the Food Network while eating brunch. All in all, it was so fun that I stayed longer than I intended, and didn't get home until almost three p.m. Then I procrastinated for half an hour or so before calling my parents, who seemed to be in good spirits because it's been dry there for a few days (they said that according to the latest news reports, if they make it through the end of the week without any rain, it will have been twelve days since the last precipitation, which is the longest they will have gone without precipitation in three *years* -- no wonder Iowa is flooding all the time).
After talking to my parents, I fell asleep in the pool of late afternoon sun on my couch; when I'm unemployed, I have a feeling I'll develop a siesta schedule, since I love sleeping in the afternoon sun. Then, I picked up my manuscript and started working again, but it's really not going well. I did finally come up with a name for Madeleine's actress alter ego (her real name is Madeleine Vaillant; her pseudonym is Marguerite Guerrier, which has some war/conflict undertones that I find quite appealing). I also switched her cousin's title; Alex is now the earl of Salford, not the earl of Rossendale, because Rossendale sounds too much like Rothwell (Ferguson's title), and Rossendale is also too much of a mouthful for when Alex is the hero of his own book.
But then, I hit the wall. Clearly the twins are proving to be a huge stumbling block for me, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. I started making a list of everything that might be blocking me, and they were at the top. I also think I'm just worried that I have too many plot threads going; the feedback on my first book was that there wasn't enough plot, so maybe I'm compensating by giving this one too much? It should be a reasonably manageable amount as it stands, but maybe I'm reacting to the fact that both of them are having conflicts with their families, and maybe their situations are too parallel. Or maybe I'm worried that I don't really know who Ferguson is anymore, since I killed his dad, and so he's not behaving consistently. Or maybe I'm just sick of this story and wish that I could take a few months away from it, but I know that if I don't finish it now, I never will, and there's enough potential remaining with it that I don't want to throw it out.
So finally I stepped away from the manuscript and from my list of woes and watched last week's episode of "Project Runway" (drama!) and read some sections of a few of my favorite writing/style books. This was helpful, if only to remind myself that for the most part, I'm doing a lot of things in this book right -- and that if I could just figure out what is the issue with these damn twins, I might be able to make some progress.
Tomorrow's a work day, but as there are only ten (gasp) of them left, that's not such a bad thing. I also need to do the assignment for my magazine class on Wednesday; I probably should have done it this weekend, rather than banging my head against my keyboard over my book, but I have a couple of nights to finish it. Now, though, it's time for bed -- and I'm going to write before work tomorrow to see if the combination of morning + my surly morning mood can change my perspective just enough to get through this block. Goodnight!
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