Pesky Inspiration

That'll teach me to detail all my writing projects. The post I wrote about them yesterday gave rise to an evening of rereading and pondering that, finally, this morning led to a breakthrough. Trouble is, this wasn't the one I was supposed to be working on. It wasn't even the one I had a recent 'lightbulb' moment about!

The offender is number two in the list - 'Danni'. I said yesterday that it needed 'something' and I finally figured out what it was by reading through the abandoned first draft. There was a heck of a lot of background material in there (pivotal to the central relationship) that I'd simply discarded when I changed the plot around. Well, obviously I'm not just going to lump it back in but it does give me back the character insight I was lacking in more recent drafts.

Secondly, I knew part of my central hypothesis was weak. This was already the second incarnation but roll on number three. I know exactly what to change. I don't quite know how the change will affect every little thing but I've got a good grip on the basics.

So what now? Well, I'm knee-deep in editing 'Lily' after consultation with my agent and I need to finish a draft of my current thesis chapter by Christmas (my supervisor then 'persuaded' me to take Christmas week off from it). I'm also seeing quite a bit of my nieces and nephew and there's that whole Christmas thing itself to get out of the way. Does that mean this is a project for the New Year? Looks likely. And I think I have to bump it up the priority list. 'Lily' then 'Danni'. Going to be a busy January.