Status Update: Cat, Characters, Conflict

Status Update for Dowager Feline Clancy: She is on the mend. The Grand Old Lady is healing nicely with the antibiotics, her blood work came back with nothing too scary other than raised white count (infection is our going diagnosis), and she's chowed down 6 small cans of Fancy Feast wet food. She started purring again yesterday and was laying in bed with me this morning for love and affection. Whew! Dodged a bullet!

Status Update for Cast of Current Characters: Muddling through this WIP in Revision with doubt and frustration as my constant companions. I've unearthed surprising emotional elements and have attempted to shore up the plot with new scenes, but I am not sure if my attempts are stellar. I know I have to go in and layer tons of senses and eliminate some repetitive phrases and word tics, but I am not ready to CUT again. I am so tired of cutting and pasting and rewriting. I love my characters. If I didn't love them so much, I would have thrown in the towel and started a new book. But I am fighting for them.

Status Update for Conflict: Wow, I know I've got internal conflict going strong. I know I have a crazy external plot and that's what is driving me insane. This started off as a category BLAZE type of a book. Now I have this insane ST with suspense and sex and laughter. Yes, deeper emotional elements are surfacing. Why now? Argh. I know I will have to weave them in later. I've literally had "Place Marker Scenes" that I've expanded into decent first draft scenes, but will this MS be ready for other eyes by the middle of March? I don't know. So much feels like it needs to be layered in and I am completely adrift regarding my Villain (who finally revealed himself to me by the last third of the book). I want to send it out and get feedback, but one of my CPs says I should wait till it's super strong. Another reader is willing to peek now and see what is working. I still don't know if the other two CPs can withstand some the rawer parts of the current WIP. Need to ask them first.

Conclusion: keep muddling along, keep layering in stuff, keep working on the new scenes. Give myself time to finish it to MY satisfaction.

Hopefully I won't have total drek by mid-March.

Stay tune!