Plans

Honestly, sometimes life doesn't go the way you planned it.

I was so looking forward to last night's writers group (SCBWI), but a part on my car broke. It was indispensable. It had to be fixed. Someone I know promised to fix it, but he stopped, on the way from work, for a haircut. After that, he stopped for dinner. I was at his mercy. He finally fixed it, but by that time, it was too late to go to the meeting. I was thrilled to learn that the speaker, Leah Clifford, author of a trilogy consisting of A Touch Mortal, A Touch Morbid, and A Touch Menacing. This third and final book in the trilogy came out just this month, March. 

From what I understand, the meeting was awesome. Lots of discussion with Leah offering so much. What a fun person and so giving. I immediately sent her contact info off to my Skyline 'conference' chair. Leah sounds like she'd be a good fit as one of the speakers for Skyline's annual conference in September. Here's links. 

http://www.leahclifford.com/

http://leahclifford.wordpress.com/

My writing buddy and I got together tonight and discussed what is becoming a recurrent theme: character development. There were some awesome quotes in this month's Writer's Digest and I shared them with her. (I promise I'll put them here for you, dear readers.)

After we spent a couple hours sharing thoughts, I read her Chapter Four of 'Nothing But Blue Skies.' She was honest. She felt it was a big dull. I explained that there was a lot of exposition in this chapter. Nonetheless, she insisted that I could put sparkle into the chapter. 

Dear me, that means when we read Chapter Five I'm going to have the same problem. I was long overdue for putting some exposition into the book, and I thought I handled it well - even had a bear attack in the middle of it. She loved the bear attack. 

So - back to the drawing board on Ch. 4 & 5. I trust her. Implicitly. 

I present Ch. 6, 7, & 8 of 'The Other Side' to the Skyline folk tomorrow morning. I've got my fingers crossed. I presented Ch. 4 & 5 to my writing class and they loved them. Phew!

Life is back-peddling.