take a minute to concentrate and she opens up her eyes

I accomplished my three-hour daily minimum in terms of time spent on the book, but I didn't write a damn word; instead, I wrote out several pages of notes about where to take the second half, including brainstorming 70+ possibilities for scenes between now and the end of the book. I really only need about twenty-four and I think I have most of them already figured out, but this was a good exercise. I learned some things that I didn't know before, even if I did come up with some ridiculous, unusable ideas (like Madeleine's pirate cousin Sebastian showing up from Bermuda and threatening to fire his cannon on Ferguson's seaside ducal estate -- Sebastian is a pirate, but firing on a residence on British soil probably wouldn't go over so well, even if he is the son of an earl and not just a scurrilous seadog). So, I have all day tomorrow to write (except for doing homework for and going to blogging class), and I have a pretty good sense of what happens next (sort of).

Anyway, I worked on that this morning, then scurried around and went to the gym for a training session with Alyssa. I asked her a question about her weekend that showed that I had been listening on Wednesday when she said what she intended to do, and she looked startled, and then said that she had mentioned to another trainer that I was one of the first clients she's had who asks her questions and seems interested in what she does. That was quite bizarre to me; she asks me what I'm doing, so why wouldn't I ask her? Then again, the gym is expensive and so mostly attracts a) executives/lawyers and b) the type of women who loudly discuss their botox treatments, so I suppose it's not really a surprise that they might be too self-absorbed to talk to "the help" (which is what a trainer is, in some ways). But my workout was good, and I had a delicious sandwich in their cafe afterwards before running home, picking up my laptop, and doing a couple of hours of work at Starbucks.

I threw in the towel around 5:30 to meet the Heathers for our belated margaritas and pie (tonight sans both margaritas and pie, since we all had Diet Cokes, and we never have pie at these events anyway). It was lovely to see them both; Heather #1 (aka dear respected madam) had read the first six chapters of the romance novel segment that I sent her and had excellent, useful feedback to share, so I was v. grateful for that. One of her biggest pieces of feedback was that I need to describe Ferguson's red hair so that it's hot auburn or strawberry blond hair and does not make her think of Carrot Top (my words, not hers), which I think is fair. I also got an email from Priyanka tonight with a lot of useful feedback as well, so I have a lot to ponder.

The good news is that so far I don't seem to be way off base -- there are no quibbles about the mistress plot so far, and most of the issues can be resolved through the addition of more detail, not major plot overhauls, which is more of a relief than I can possible describe. I'm still curious to hear back from the other people I sent it to, and I need to focus on just finishing the damn draft before I get sucked back into revisions, but really, it's good to feel like I'm moving in the right direction.

After dinner, I sprinted to Sephora and did some damage; I had a 20% off everything coupon, which is fairly rare, and it expired today. I checked out three minutes before the store closed, so I was just in time. I'm trying to be good about my expenditures, but I'm not yet ready to go sans makeup (and the older I get, the less ready I will be), and 20% off of everything was too good to pass up. So I stocked up on mascara, tinted moisturizer and dry shampoo, and also bought some anti-aging eye cream because I'm still getting carded regularly for alcoholic beverages and I want to keep it that way. My face, hair and body are pretty much remarkably unchanged since about senior year of high school. I'm just waiting for it to all go to hell (hence my freak-outs whenever I find a white hair - and I have a couple of white hairs in my left eyebrow, which really *really* bothers me), and I expect the next decade will not be as kind as the last one was. So, Sephora still gets a line item on my funemployment budget despite the inherent frivolity of spending my savings on magic potions.

Then I came home, did an hour of work for the freelance project, procrastinated, and then wrapped up my brainstorming. And now, it's time for bed; tomorrow requires intense writing productivity and some stuff for my blogging class, so I should sleep. Goodnight!

p.s. congrats to my cousin Drewbaby for his role in getting his high school football team to the Iowa state championships! From what I read online, he made all six of his point-after kick attempts, which is awesome. I texted him when I saw my uncle's comment on my last blog post and congratulated him on being the only star athlete of this generation of Wamplers - perhaps not a huge feat considering that my brother and I are his only competition, but still.