The Furious Spinner

I finished the first draft of Old Mermaid Sanctuary at a little after 5:00 p.m. (Mario thinks it should be The Old Mermaid Sanctuary and I think it should be An Old Mermaid Sanctuary, since part of the point is that there isn't just one Old Mermaid Sanctuary, but "the" does sound better.) It's almost 80,000 words. (That's about 300 pages.) Once I rewrite it, I'm sure I'll add and drop. Myla went on quite an adventure this time. Some of it was hard for me. I had trouble with a lot of things that were happening in the book. I finally just had to relax and let it happen. It's very different from Church of the Old Mermaids, but it is very much in the spirit of COTOM. This is good because I didn't want to just tell the same story again. That would be boring. What I thought would happen did not happen. This is good, too. Once a book takes over, I usually know it's really its own thing and not something I am manipulating.

All day today while I was in the Quail House completing the book, a phainopepla kept tapping on the window. Sometimes he would cling to the window—I'm not really certain how this was physically possible—and sometimes he would tap on the window. Every once in a while he'd fly and then tap. I was afraid he was going to hurt himself. I went outside to try and figure out what he was seeing, so I could change it. But I couldn't figure it out. Was he just seeing the desert reflected? If so, "turn around, darlin'! There's the real thing." I moved things around on the window sill. I put books there to try and block the view, but nothing worked. I vaguely remember this happening last year, so maybe he knows what he's doing, or at least he doesn't hurt himself while not knowing what he's doing.

My parents came Saturday night and left Sunday. It was great seeing them and spending time with them. And today I finished the first draft of the book. Tomorrow we're driving to Nogales, renting a car, and then driving across the border and going down further so I can do some research. (It is such a pain in the ass to take your own car to Mexico now. You have to prove you own it. Which means you need the title. Well, nobody carries their title in their car! If someone stole your car, they'd have the title and they could do whatever they wanted with it. Next year we may spend a week or more there, so we'll bring the title.) After Mexico I'm resting and relaxing for the rest of the time we're here. We head home Sunday.

So you might not hear from me for a while.

P.S. Did I mention there's going to be a third Old Mermaids novel? I'm not sure of the title because I don't know exactly what's it's going to be about. Maybe Siren Songs of the Old Mermaids. I'm not sure. But I've very excited about where the second one ended, and where the third one will pick up again.

Labels: Arizona, Old Mermaids, writing

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