Hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season!
Here in Oklahoma, we had a “for real” blizzard on Christmas Eve. I’ve never seen a storm like this here. It was exciting! I felt terrible for all the people stranded and waiting on rescue for hours, but watching the wind whip all that snow into massive, swirly shapes was awe-inspiring from my living room. We lit a fire and ate yummy leftover Italian Beef and Vegetable Soup.
Homemade soup, snow and a fireplace and I’m a happy lady!
We had a family gathering that night, but my husband drove to get his mother from work and called from her house to say we were going nowhere. If visibility is down enough to scare my husband with his big four-wheel drive, then it’s bad. So we ate sou
p and let the kids talk us into opening their gifts early. (They always do anyway. )
It was actually one of the nicest holidays. I set aside the incredible stress of this past year and just enjoyed my kids. Oh, and the book my husband bought me for Christmas!
I read until my eyes ached. This book is massive!
For the first half, I felt pulled back into the excitement I had as a teen reading The Stand. I’m also not feeling so badly about all the characters I had in Dweller on the Threshold. Believe me, Stephen King takes the award for the most characters to follow in a story. I must find his words on this book-must know how long it took to write. If he had charts or if this just poured from his head like magic. (I’m betting on the magic thing with him. )
I’m in the 700s and the story isn’t close to winding down!
I’m not picking it back up until tonight though. Since we still have snow on the roads, it’s unlikely they’ll want to show my house so I’m burrowing in to wrestle the outline for YA#2 in shape. I’ve been sketching scenes like mad and right now, the book has that sort of all-over-the-place-mad-excitement feel to it. The organized half of my brain, the part that fights the more dominant half constantly, is slamming down its proverbial foot today. Must get notes and scenes in line. Which means…
PLOT BOARD TIME!
Man, I love this part of the process. I have some of the best scenes planned for this book. My biggest problem? I still don’t have an opening scene I can’t live without. I’ve sketched three different scenarios, but none are hitting me with the impact of the first scene in book #1.
I’m hoping the magic plot board will set that straight over then next couple of days.
And last, check out the FANTASTIC Wonder Woman icon to your right. I got that from the lovely Karen Mahoney. I have a feeling she and I spent our childhood in similar fashion-glued to every Wonder Woman episode that came on TV. I even told a relative I planned to be Wonder Woman when I grew up. 😉