Visiting and working

I spent probably 20 hours in Frisco this weekend, visiting Jamie and Mel, Maddie and Edie, and had a lovely time--good visits with the girls, though they are very self-contained and entertain themselves for hours, so sometimes adults don't see much of them. Sunday morning, Jamie went to work out, Mel and I both slept late, and it was eleven o'clock before the girls came downstairs. They'd been playing doctor, with Edie as the patient with a broken arm--Maddie is going to wear out that ace bandage, which she sometimes wraps around her own arm for effect. I had great adult visits though--talking politics separately with each of them (we all agree, but we can get vehement about our agreement). One highlight was that Jamie and I went to buy me a new Spring Instinct phone which does everything--phone, email, GPS, weather, voice reognition, camera, lots more than I ever thought I'd want. Then we spent much of the weekend setting it up (Jamie had lots of good laughs out of that and I won't embarrass msyelf with my technical lack of expertise) and teaching me to use it. We also went to a new grocery, Market Store, that is sort of a combination of an upscale grocery and a Central Market high end store. The produce and meat and seafood--lots of it organic and all very fresh--line the perimeter of the store, while the ordinary daily goods canned and dry goods are in the center. An hour and a half in the store passed quickly.
It was a wonderful weekend but as always I was glad to get home, though I detoured through Coppell. Jamie drove me there where Jordan and Christian were having dinner with his family. I came home with Jordan and Jacob, who'd eaten too much cake and chattered animatedly (and meaninglessly) most of the way.
From Saturday morning to late Sunday evening is not long and yet it seemed like I'd been away a long time. Unpacking, catching up with the animals--Sue had kindly taken care of them--catching up with email and the Sunday paper. Thanks goodness today was a holiday--I slept till 8:30 this morning, went to Central Market, and have been home working all day.
I'm rewriting again and sometimes wondering if I'll ever move forward or just keep rewriting. But I see where I'd gone amuck--one was to follow an editor's suggestion (without any promise of interest) to make the second novel the first. I tried hard to weave the back story into it, but I wasn't happy with the result, and Fred said the rewrite lacked the unity or coherence of my usual work. His other comment was that I was letting a subplot take over too much of the story. The problem was a famliar one to writers--I got so intrigued by one event that I let it take over. A designer friend of mine said she knew why a cover she was working on wasn't right--she was so determined to use one element, that it got away with the job. Once she discarded it, the cover worked. I'm hoping the same is true of me.
A friend, divorced after a long marriage, told me someone advised her to shoot her husband in his sorry ass. I laughed a lot--and saw it as the opening of a novel. It worked great, but then what did I do with that story in a novel about a serial killer? That's why I'm starting over. And each time I go through I see places where I can flesh the story out with more details, more description. Fred always tells me to stop hurrying through things, pointing out his wife likes the descriptions as well as the plot. He's write I do hurry--and if I'm not careful, I could write a whole novel in dialog. I did three chapters today, but I think I can only do two even on a good day. I begin to lose my edge.
Back to work tomorrow. A note of thanks to those who advised me to see a doctor about my balance and others who might have worried. I have done so, though I know very well it's part of my lifetime anxiety disorder--sometimes I can keep it under control and sometimes I can't. This time it has come out in the classic fear of open spacees--let me walk next to a walll, a line of parked cars, a person, and I'm fine--but don't ask me to cross an open parking lot alone. I have developed some coping skills (ways to avoid being confronted) but I know I have to face the problem and have taken steps to do that too. I appreciate your concern.