Notes on Future Topics

Yesterday at work, I sort of lost it for a bit and decided my brain needed a break. I spent some time researching our upcoming (next summer) trip to Disney Paris, and ended up looking at Disney Cruises as well. With the budget I have to work with for anniversapalooza, it looks like we can afford just the Paris side of our planned excursion to Paris and London, and The Man (TM) is okay with that. So, we plan to do a 5 day/4 night trip to Paris, focusing mostly on Disney, but with a side-trip into Paris, and maybe a side-trip into Provins.

Finally, these two Disney enthusiasts will see Phantom Manor.

Mind you, those cruises were VERY tempting. For about the same money as it would cost us to go to Paris, we could have doubled our time on a cruise ship. But that will come in the future.

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Next year's fake family reunion, by the way, will feature VOW RENEWAL. This year's will just feature cool people. Got the invites out for that yesterday. For those of you who have no clue what that is, my counselor of a few years ago suggested that I celebrate the family I have and the life I have created from my humble beginnings. This one will be number three.

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There is a trip to Finland and Norway coming up. I intend to put up the agenda soon(ish), and there will be some journaling on the trip. And some research posting later.

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What else do I want to write about upcoming? Um... Prospero Lost (next entry), And it's time for another fashion post, probably on skin care for older women. I have a couple of requests for VP interviews out.

And there is the Clarion Write-a-thon again.

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Right. Moving on. Next entry coming on the heels of this one.

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

Prospero Lost

I...grapple with my current work. It's a commitment of time and energy. Five books that will examine four generations of one family over ninety years. We take it one book at a time, with a different focal relationship for each book. Currently I am revising what I can save from the old version of what will become book three. But the time I've honed everything down, I might have about 30,000 words. Most of those events will end up in the finished story, even if the actual words I have characterized them with don't.

After I've done that winnowing, new writing begins. I plan to explore stories and arcs, see how they fit into my plot outlines and time tables, and focus on the tensions as well as the climaxes.

I've only stuck my toes in the shallows of this project. I can see the overall shape and vision of the thing. But from this side of the lake, I can't see the opposite shoreline of the completion of the entire project. It's huge and complicated. Worth doing, certainly. I want to do it well.

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As most writers do, I read others. About a year ago, I saw the cover of Prospero Lost, picked it up, and thought that I would be happy to read a story with characters from The Tempest. I picked it up a couple of months after that, and just recently found my way to it in the big stack of books.

Here was the model of what I was missing. Prospero Lost is a story about the Prospero family. Told from Miranda's viewpoint, after she receives a cryptic warning from her father, she and airy servant turned fleshy detective Mab set out to warn her seven remaining siblings about a demonic danger. The siblings turn out to be other famous characters in history and folklore. Oh, and the family just doesn't get along anymore. Rife with melodrama, adventure, character conflict, and mysterious events, Miranda and Mab move through an increasingly complicated story which will be concluded in two more books.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.