Yesterday's Word Count: 0
Total Word Count: 9,326

Well, I am just going to add my excuse for yesterday. The short version is that I had a huge personal crisis - ugh, so not gonna be a divorce blog, I know I keep saying that - and basically did nothing. Not just no-writing nothing, but nothing at all. Well, I almost did something; I packed my bag and arranged for childcare for my kids and planned a road trip, but then I failed on the follow through.

My friend, Mary Ann, is doing NaNoWriMo, and per her Facebook, she is close to 40,000 words. I was feeling like a slow slow slacker, but I'm actually almost a quarter of the way there. It's kind of interesting to think about. I'm not trying to be comparing or anything, but I was feeling like I really hadn't done much, because after all, my almost-10k words is all of 17 pages. Calling it 20 pages would put 40k at about 80 pages, or 160 double spaced...that doesn't seem novel-length but I suppose I am forgetting things like chapters and such. Anyway, that gives me a goal, I suppose, about 10k a week; by next Saturday, I'd like to have 20k but realistically I should have more, if I write the way I've been writing last week. We'll see how well that goes, of course, because the twisting of the time lines is going to give me a headache, I know it.

Anyway, I just plotted out the next iteration of the story. I have a good beginning, and I know where I'm going to go with it. I'm not sure of exactly how to bring the hesitatency across (yes, I know I misspelled, but I'm too lazy to fix it), and how to work in the slow-building trust. And here we come to a head with the key problem with this story - too much dialogue and not enough action. I have to find some action for this section, other than simply the building of trust and the burying of the time capsule. And I still have to figure out why Caroline is in the newspaper. LOL Maybe she's a hero. Ideally, she and Jonathan would both be in the paper. I mean, it's a small town paper, how hard is it to wind up there? Not hard, I should know. In fact, maybe they just do some sort of service and then...

Wait. The putting together of proof implies that Alex is going to be prosecuted and punished. But I'm still not sure that's where I want to take him. On the other hand, the idea of fixing the problem seems to come later in the novel, and so perhaps it comes later to Jonathan and Caroline. Let me go check my storyline, because if Jonathan just came from FUTURE, then he would have just seen Alex's wife...but he would only have known that if he had done the research.

Something else to consider. I wanted to fit Jonathan and Caroline both with some very futuristic atomic watches, so they can keep track of the arrival to the nanosecond. But. I have to decide how "Back to the Future" I'm going to get, because Jonathan would literally be bringing back the watch that he is already wearing. And the paradox issue is giving me a headache. I was all ready to write but now I have to stop and think about that. Of course, I wanted to put two Jonathans together, so that would seem to answer the question. Perhaps they don't realize that until later, however. Okay. So I can make it work now and discuss it later. When would they discuss it? When they work out their plan. Noted.

Alright, then, I think I am ready to go. I feel bad about dropping yesterday; what kind of lousy writer fails to write anything because she's having a real life breakdown? Sheesh. Priorities.

edited to add: I lied. I have to hit "Invalid Item"  to get some of this paradox stuff out of my system. It figures that I jinxed myself. Watch me miss 20k by next week. Boo.