In which the weather refuses to cooperate. Also: little window into my brain.
The Perseids are here! My favorite annual meteor shower.  In fact, I amuse myself by pretending that it’s my personal meteor shower, falling, as it does, on the days around my birthday.
And this year it’s also the dark of the moon for those days, so we won’t have that nasty ol’ moonlight brightening up the night sky, and washing out all the meteor-trails. Excellent!
Now, let’s just check on the weather…Hm.
Friday night: rain
Saturday night: rain
Sunday night: thunderstorms!
Monday night: more thunderstorms.
Tuesday night — well, it’s all over, but even so: thunderstorms.
Ah, but not everywhere in the country! I could drive to…
Okay, it would be a four-hour drive for me, at the least, to reach some place with non-cloudy skies. And then four hours back. I don’t think I can manage that…
But you might be luckier — find yourself on the visibility maps, here.
I see, for instance, that Michigan should have a nice view on Sunday night. I know people in Michigan. I’ll be happy for the people in Michigan.
Of course, thanks to the 21st Century, you can watch a livestream of the sky somewhere over Colorado, on Sunday night. I plan to do exactly that.
In other news: same old news, as I push onward, wrestling Book 5 into shape. I’m devoting as much of August as possible to the task. (Minus, of course, the 3-day celebration of the birthday of my pal Brian Bambrough, who is turning 80 this month. And who, by the way, actually wrote a diet/lifestyle book, so that you could stay as fit as he is for as long as he has.)
My latest point of writerly ditheration (minor spoilers for Book 5!):
An extremely important chapter containing: much cleverly-embedded incluing about Rowan’s world; introduction of a new character, Sarah; expansion and deepening of an existing character not seen much previously, whom I plan to make the reader love (Artos); set-up of the current situation, to be executed (one hopes!) in such a way that it naturally launches everything else that follows, as surely as an arrow leaves the bow; and spooky foreshadowing.
At some point I realized that I should not be introducing a new character there at all – I should be using Keridwen, the chart-mistress instead. We were in the chart-room; she should be there. Seemed natural. So, I changed Sarah to Keridwen.
And the chapter stopped working.
I had to change every sentence of dialog, because Keridwen is a different person from Sarah, and they do not speak alike. And I had to change every physical movement, because how one moves reflects one’s personality. And then I had to change what Artos said, because his relationship to Sarah is different from his relationship to Keridwen.
And then I lost the spooky foreshadowing. Keridwen is an extremely definite person! She has many facts at her command, and is active and practical. Sarah has a deep well of wisdom, and moves and speaks with quiet, graceful strength. A conversation with Keridwen would be lively and enlightening, and make you think about cool stuff. A conversation with Sarah might point in many directions, and make you wonder about deep things.
I love both these women.
I decided that it was Sarah in the chart-room, after all, and not Keridwen. Keridwen was busy doing something else. Possibly chopping wood. Keridwen is sixty-one years old, and Sarah is.. Hm… Seventy-four? About. If wood needed chopping in the dead of winter, it would probably be Keridwen doing it, not Sarah.
Problem solved! Okay, problem created, and then solved. By going back to the original version.
Now, the question for the class is: Why was this not a waste of time and effort?  Because, you know — it wasn’t.
By going through all this testing and analysis, I :
- clarified the characters in my mind
- clearly identified their interrelationships,
- understood better why the spooky foreshadowing mattered, and how not to overdo it
- established Sarah now, when there’s space, instead of later, where there’s none
- learned a few extra things about Artos, which will serve me later
- gained an extra level of insight in how words on the page transform into characterization, mood, plot, theme, milieu
All of this will help not only this book, but subsequent books in the series, any parallel books — and probably everything I ever write from now on.
Not a waste of time. Worth every moment.
In other news:
I just finished listening to the audiobook version of Brian Jay Jones’ biography of Jim Henson.
It was simply amazing. What an incredible life of creative genius he led. What a privilege it was to have him on Earth with us for a while.
Jones did a fantastic job with this book. And he had access to all the information: the people Henson knew, all of his projects, even his personal journals and letters. It’s revealing, and stunning, and inspiring, and heartbreaking.
And I can’t say enough good things about the narrator, Kirby Heybourne. He has a very graceful touch with the voices. And he did do the voices: when Henson is quoted, he sounds like Henson; when Kermit is quoted, he sounds like Kermit. When no one is quoted, Heybourne’s own voice is natural and engaging.
Only problem with an audiobook: no photographs.
(Edited to correct a mental blip that made me write “Sharon” instead of “Sarah.” It’s Sarah.)