BFF Brainstorming

I had a great weekend home in PA - so much got done that I finally feel as though I'm moving in the right direction. I may need to come home one more time before I leave for Scotland - or maybe not, since I leave in 25 days!! - but for the most part, I feel things are taken care of and heading in the right direction in terms of planning for the PA reception and more importantly, my future as a novelist!

Yep - I had an awesome brainstorming session while sitting on a rocking chair and watching rainclouds burst wide open over a Pennsylvania cornfield. Sitting on the front porch of my BFF's house at twilight on a warm evening is my absolute favorite way to spend a summer's night. We sat there for hours workshopping Covenhaven and finally, after months of little plot progression, we had a break through moment and the plot is finally resolved!!

When we began this project in November, it was full steam ahead for the first two months and then we both hit walls - actually, that's a bad analogy. We didn't hit anything, in fact, Aym was socked by a vicious cycle of the flu that rotated through her three kids, one at a time, for months while I became mired in editing and revision perfectionism.

There were many moments when we both thought this project was out of our hands - at one point, we decided that I should continue forward on my own; at another point, I considered shelving it and even began a new, unrelated project in a separate genre - but neither of us could let it go, nor could we end our collaboration.

Covenhaven is a joint venture - it's half me and it's half Aym - and that's what is going to set it apart from other novels in its genre. We have A LOT of work to do but now that we are both re-invigorated, I have no doubt that it will be enoyable and will get done.