Last night I printed out the final twelve pages of my ms and read them again.  I felt cold dread.  Something was off.  So I went outside and hooped without music as I talked aloud (to myself and the occasional finch or robin) about my story.  And I realized I needed to use highlighters to, well, highlight the different plot and character interactions in those pages to get a handle on the situation.

Today I highlighted and wrote on sticky notes and scribbled in margins and crossed out paragraphs and basically had a good ol’ time ripping those pages apart.  The cold dread has now warmed to a tentative optimism. 

I wanted to post a photo of my efforts because it felt good to make that kind of progress but also because the results were rather colorful and festive.

Alas, I cannot locate my camera.  Perhaps Zippy took it to British Columbia. 

If you’d like to humor me, close your eyes and visualize yellow, pink, orange, green, and blue lines scattered with pale yellow sticky notes and illegible blue ballpoint scribbles.

Oohs and aahs optional.