Been a little while since I checked in on the Sunday Circle hosted by author Peter M. Ball, but not because I haven’t been working! (Okay, so maybe I’ve been half working, but progress is being made.) March was a tough month for getting things done, between houseguests and ridiculously unending illness of any variety (and the sleepless nights that entails with a wee one), so I’m about two weeks behind where I was hoping I’d be by the end of March. But I’ve made some concerted steps in the right direction, so hopefully it won’t overflow much more than the two weeks.
This week, I’m working on: Hammering out the details surrounding a new ending for the second draft. There were quite a few weak points in the initial summary draft finale, so this week–now that I’ve gotten all my problems and think-items listed out in a notebook–I’m tackling the rethink of that. Lots of strings need to be tied up and connected, so I won’t be 100% surprised if I don’t get the whole thing mentally finalized by Friday, but I’m going to try. If I can tack that down, I’ll be in good shape to find solutions to the other remaining issues that need detailing.
What’s inspiring me this week?: I have been absolutely, out-of-my-mind obsessed with the book Blind Descent by James M. Tabor. It’s a non-fiction account of several attempts to discover the world’s deepest supercave, and I’m losing my mind reading it. There is so much I didn’t know about caving (other than that there’s very little chance I’d every try it), and about the cave environments (like the fact that caves “breathe”–they have air-flow due to barometric pressure changes, and the bigger the cave system, the stronger (and louder) the wind (even up to hurricane speeds!)). I’m having a delightful time armchair spelunking, and it’s definitely lighting some inspiration fires in my head.
What action do I need to take this week?: Mostly, I just need to get serious about getting back to my day-to-day schedule. Now that everyone’s relatively healthy, there’s no excuse for not getting work done. Also, need to resubmit a story I got back Saturday and make a proper market-submission itinerary for it.
Maggie Slater 