Bad Blogger

Oh dear. I seem to have done exactly what I promised myself I wouldn't do, and let Life overcome Blogging.

Here are my excuses:

1. The maps arrived. The Unnameables will have a map of Town spread over two pages, and a map of Island on one page. Very, very exciting, especially the map of Town, which seems like it sprang out of my subconscious. However, there were some problems. Town Hall didn't have the all-important back entrance to the cellar where the jail is. There was no tree for Medford, Prudy, and Earnest to lean against to rest up from carrying the rescued journals to Boyce's house. Merchant's store didn't have a liveable second floor. Much nitpicking and angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin dancing. In some places I changed the text to match the map, because I'm such an accommodating (i.e. freaked out) author.

2. I'm so boggled by Life that I can't remember what 2 is.

3. I rashly told my agent and editor I would immediately work on a proposal for the next book (working title: The Filioli), which I thought I had almost finished drafting. I then realized that the book was lacking a certain oomphiness. So I came up with an idea (not highly original, but what is?) of allowing Durindana the Filiola (kind of like a fairy) short bursts of narration in between chapters narrated by my heroine, Mellie. This sets the proposal back a few weeks, but cheers me up no end.

4. The newspaper I freelance for asked me to review a symphony concert, ignoring my protests that I would be lucky to notice if the piccolo player fell into the tuba. I read up on the pieces and got CDs of them out of the library, hoping this would help me figure out if something went significantly haywire. Went to the concert yesterday and wrote the review this morning. Fortunately, it seemed that everyone else around me agreed that the concert was wonderful. Wonderful I can write about. Mistakes, not so much.

5. Plus my writing workshop for local kids starts Wednesday and I'm having trouble finding good examples of omniscient narration.

I have more but I can see you're getting bored. I'll do better next time, I promise.