I got it!!!

Thanks to divine intervention (thank you, God), a massive headache and a dose of Alka Seltzer Cold Plus, I've got a really, really rough draft of my synopsis for Zara II. But it's complete! One that actually makes sense, I hope, from beginning to end. Of course, it's written out long hand in some fairly scrawly handwriting that I hope I will be able to read now that I'm off the high of ASCP, but we'll see.

I had a great time talking with The Schaumburg Scribes on Saturday morning/afternoon. It really reinforced my feeling that teaching/talking about writing is an important part of all this to me. I enjoy it. I really love passing along information that I've learned the hard way so other people don't have to make the same mistakes. I like feeling like maybe I made a difference in someone else's writing journey as so many others have done for me. I'd like to be able to teach at some of the community colleges around here, but I'm not sure if they'd be open to someone without a master's degree. But we'll see.

Anyway, back to the story of divine intervention. I went home after my session in Schaumburg and curled up on the sofa to watch all the television I'd Tivo'd last week. No, I didn't make it until Sunday, but I did get past Friday night, so that was good : ) At the end of all that television watching, I ended up with a huge headache, far more likely related to the changing temperature and my temperamental sinuses than anything else. I took some Alka Seltzer Plus Cold and promptly went spacey, as that's what that medicine tends to do to me.

I laid down for a nap, thinking, as I always do right before sleep, about the manuscript issues that still need to be solved for Zara II. As I drifted in and out of sleep, little bits of things would come to me, some of them jumbled up in very nonsensical dream context and others making perfect sense. My nap, during which I didn't really sleep the entire time, lasted about two hours.
At some point, I realized that somehow all the plot knots had become unsnarled. Everything *gasp* made sense. It all matched up.

Honestly, I find that if you can achieve that state between awakeness and sleep, some really creative stuff can happen in there. That's where I can the "pharmacists know all our dirty secrets" for the first Rennie book. I think it just opens your mind up to hearing things that you normally miss in your frenzy to find the answers. I find the Divine in that sort of thing, especially when I've been feeling desperate, as I have been over the last weeks, and this is an answer to an unspoken prayer. So, thank you, God!

Anyway, the synopsis is done, rough, but done! Hallelujah! I've got to type it out and fill in a couple of the rough spots. But the major plot and subplot work...at least to me. The real test will come when I call upon my hardworking first readers : )