but. it is december. any day now a frost is finally going to come london’s way {we’re heading to london for a family holiday. finally. woo~hoo} & kill all this sneeze & sinus inducing mold & in the meantime, pumpkins & scarecrows & popcorn & apple cider & leaves turning colors & long walks & decemberfest beers {well, can’t have those anymore, but still.} & then it’s january & february & etc. & that is why i didn’t start rereading my novel until last night.

i’m going to keep the overall structure, which i wasn’t totally sure about – it might not work on the end but should i ever get so lucky to improve it. i actually think it works right now. i need to take parts of it much less seriously. there is a lot of opportunity for humor & i tend to skim over it. i’m going to have to remember that each time i approach revising – to leave space for the light-hearted. all in all, i’m facing less work & more fun than i anticipated.

in keeping some of my original decisions - point of view, structure, etc i don’t have as major an overhaul as i initially thought. my biggest challenge is fleshing it all out – adding details, taking more time with important moments - in general, making the whole thing more human, more real, more sparkly. how ‘unwriterly’ is that. i actually think what my novel needs is sparkle. perhaps more appropriately what it needs is the life that comes from really thinking & playing with it as opposed to pounding it out in the early morning. time to add some late afternoon & early evening energy into the pages.

i’ve so many other ‘projects’ i’m keening to start; from short essays to a nonfiction book idea to a mystery series, to the prequel to this novel but i’m determined to see the process through with each ‘project’. the easiest thing in the world is to drift to another writing ‘project’ without finishing one. the hardest thing, i think, is to see one through to full completion.

can we blame it on him even though i said he wouldn’t be a distraction because well, he was.