Hmmm, well. Since the last diary I think I've made some progress. I've been trying to work on the present-day story and I think it's starting to take shape. Only now instead of feeling like I have a beginning, end, and sort-of middle, it's more like a beginning, somewhat of a middle, and an end that's waving in the wind. I thought I had an idea of where I was going to end up, but now I think about it further, it feels more like I have a sense of how but not what. So I while there is more coherency developing in my head, I also have this feeling that it's all hurtling towards a frustrating lack of closure.

I was reading this book, one of those "we'll follow a team around during a season and write a year-in-the-life" type of books. The team, as it turned out, had a disappointing year with what some felt was squandered potential, which leads people to wonder, "who's going to want to read about this?" Though in a way I liked that it doesn't have a happy ending, that they don't, in fact, overcome all adversity and win the big game in the end. It's more like a roller coaster that stops, like they all do, back at ground level. It's very bittersweet (maybe more on the bitter side given expectations), but not very commercial as far as selling the story.

Anyway, while that was nonfiction and thus there wasn't much choice in the outcome, I find myself wondering if I am resisting possible endings with less than a certain happiness quotient. Actually, I know I am doing that, but I wonder if I'll be able to let go rather than railroad the characters into my resolution, rather than theirs.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to put together the pieces I've got so far, and in some ways it's harder than I thought. It's like those puzzles that are made of geometric shapes and sometimes you have a lot of pieces in place before you realize that you haven't got room for the remaining parts, so you have to disassemble it again and try to put it together a different way. My own damn fault for writing and structuring it this way, of course. And no doubt I should just throw away some of the pieces, or hide them under a sofa cushion at least, but I'm not quite ready to do that yet.

However, I started getting the hang of writing from Her point of view again (which is good because she's supposed to have the primary POV), rather than His. So much so I lost his voice for a while (actually I think I'm sort of groping towards it asymptotically all the time, or maybe more like a scatter plot). And I learned a little something about a secondary character. So they are all starting to settle in my head comfortably now, chattering away -- if only they would like to tell me where they want to end up.