back in love with the secret to love

After a hiatus from The Secret to Love, in which I wrote three drafts of a short story for a local anthology, I'm back to Fifi and the gang. The respite freed me up, but also confounded me, in that I forgot some of the reasons why I'd started to love my narrator. Absence, when it comes to narrative development, does NOT make the heart grow fonder. It makes the heart indifferent. Sigh.

Anyway, at workshop I read a rewrite I'd rewritten over a month ago. Actually, two months ago. The good news is, I was distant enough from its creation that I was taking the pages in like a reader as I shared them. I was reading as one of the others at the table—and therefore much more available to the critique. In fact, the misgivings I felt upon reading the piece were similar to those voiced—but, since I still had the relationship of creator, I was able to see how something that didn't work COULD, in fact, work if I wove some stuff in earlier.

I'm peppering the broth with a new layer of "secret" and I'm hoping that will add some dimension to the girls' (Fifi and Ursula) relationship.

I'm committed to full reengagement with the project now. Which means daily attention. Watch the word count. It's gonna go up!