La Vie Boheme

Screeching halt

To steal (and probably paraphrase) from Lawrence Block once again: "Some days all you can really do is just go to the movies."

Having one of those days. I hit a road block on The Exile's Daughter. I've hit the dreaded middle chunk of the book, where stuff happens, and plot gets advanced and subplots become important--but nothing really gets resolved. I just don't know how it all happens. I don't have the same point-by-point outline that I had for the first section, and that I have for the last section. It's this big nebulous blob of questions and possibilities and scene ideas. I've spent a good part of the morning trying to clear some of the fog. (But only part. I also admittedly spent a fair chunk of the morning curled up in bed with the cats reading The Feminine Mystique.)

I guess I shouldn't complain too loudly. This is my first major roadblock and I'm 115 pages in so far. I just get that tingly, tense feeling on the back of my neck, that tip-of-the-tongue feeling whenever I look at my notes. It's right there, the outline I need, I just can't figure out how to coax it out today.

So I'm going to the movies. I'll try again this afternoon.