Today I resolved myself to go back to the beginning of the YA book and make some decent index cards of the dead characters because they keep getting confused in my head. The problem is that they are loosely based on my own long deceased great uncles (all gone ages before I was born) and I am tired of pausing the narrative long enough to scroll back and remind me of who was a priest and who was not. But when I looked back at the very beginning I also had an epiphany about why I keep getting stalled as I move forward. (I know where the book is going but I have fits and starts to get to each new major plot development). I have a lot of backstory and without the right amount of backstory revealed at the very beginning then the middle gets a bit hairy. Actually it's not backstory so much as history and making sure that what I want to have happened in the past in my story has been documented as happening somewhere in the book.

Are you still with me?

So, notecards and rereading and some needed rewriting. But it's all good because even though the new writing is at the beginning it still moves the book forward. I also realized that the whole story is taking place over only a week or so of real time. For some odd reason I kept thinking it had to take longer but as I've been reading The Death Collector (fabulous Victorian London scariness) I am reminded that stuff happens fast when you are running for your life. So all concerns about going slower are gone and now I'm just going to let my crew respond as any sane person would - they argue, freak and get pissed about all the insanity. But they also rise to the occasion because sometimes, the best times, that's what people do.

Good to sort all that out finally.

In other writing news I think I might have figured out a way to put together a memoir type book on my aviation experience in Alaska that my agent thinks is a good idea. I'm not too thrilled at writing a personal book - too many places I don't want to go again and plus I just feel too self conscious about it all. I'm not comfortable with that kind of writing about myself. However, I do think there is plenty of material to write an essay collection on aviation that would cover what I've learned both while working up there and also researching and writing my thesis. Most of it would be in AK but a little bit more general stuff as well (I've always wanted to write a survey on aviation literature). So maybe that would work. I have to put together about a ten page overview of the whole deal and send it off to Michele and see what she thinks but I'm feeling pretty good about this - like I could do this without getting the life sucked out of me. I could enjoy doing this. And if I work my tail off it might come out like a less political, colder (literally) and more high flying version of Sarah Vowell. I love her - LOVE HER - and I love the essay format. I really hope I can put this together in a way that resonates positively with Michele. I love writing essays; it's my fav form.

Finally, along with The Death Collector I am also reading Od Magic, a hard-to-put-down fantasy from Patricia McKillip (I've seen it described as "romantic fantasy" but it sure reads more as political intrigue then romance so far) and My Sister Guard Your Veil..., an essay collection by Iranian writers. Awesome and engrossing and much food for thought (from the TBR pile). I have Billy Boyle, a WW2 mystery waiting in the wings. The reading is good this week, very very good.