steady as she goes

I feel like as soon as I start digging out of my editing hole, I slip, and find myself back at the bottom- looking around for secure footing.

I spent a huge chunk of time this week getting my dates/timeline sorted out. Things were just not syncing up. And, while it may not really matter to the reader (I'm not sure how much of it will come through to the final product), it matters to me. It matters that the timeline of my MC's pregnancy makes sense to the rest of the story. It matters to me that crucial events of the years 1967-1973 make it into the storyline (my MC watches TV and her male lead (for lack of a better term) reads the paper- they'd be talking about the protests, vietnam, and Martin Luther King, Jr.-- they don't have to go on about it- but they'd be affected by these things)- and here I just learned that her brother died in Vietnam just after she runs away-- I mean how devastating!

So. I'm not sure this will end up counting as time well spent, but it feels important to the layering of the story. Sure, my MC is a new adult (read: just previouly a teenager) and might be a little ego-centric, but she's a compassionate soul and thinks hard about what's happening in the world. I also had to make sure the coincidences (a visit this day, going into labor the next, when she comes home- how that ties into her first visit at church-- etc) make sense.

And. I being a visual learner-- had to plug these details into actual calendar pages so I can see how things unfold. It's like having to use your fingers & toes to count. It wasn't clear enough to me to think of the events in sweeping chunks of time- I need it to be crystal clear.

This is all my round-about way of telling you-- my word count total today? 0.

Okay- it's not completely zero- I did chapter summaries for chapters 1-6- that was 672 words and if you counted all the things I've filled in on the calendar... :insert clicking calculatory sounds: minus all the words that don't count towards the word total of the book, and....hmm. 0

Stay tuned for the next riveting part in my NaNo saga... will Lynn manage to finish editing another chapter before bedtime tomorrow? will she be able to stay awake during the Sunday School class she has to teach tomorrow? will she ever know the sweet joy of vegetating on a couch again (because her back is killing her from sitting in this desk chair)? All these questions will be answered and more--

Join me tomorrow- same time, same place.