School...and 40,000 words!

I finally finished the first half of my novel, Celeste!  That is to say, I wrote over 40,000 words :).  I'm pleased.  Always in the past I have written ten or twenty pages and then given up.  The urge to stop is still there, but I now have some hope that there is an end in sight and someone might actually be tempted to read it.  Sometimes I get bogged down and it doesn't take long before I have to ask myself, how do I keep this interesting?  As a reader, I am hopelessly impatient, and I expect the same of my readers.  The Hobbit had too many details and I cannot get through a second book of Patrick O'Brian, although he writes beautiful prose.  Keeping the plot moving is a constant struggle...especially when I am trying to develop my characters at the same time.  One of my solutions for this is continual brainstorming.   I spend a day or two where I just lay in bed (ahem - for a moment or two) and brainstorm.  Or I do it while giving spelling exams..."Spell respectable," now what do I do about Ogdemious?  I broke out in song a moment later, in the style of Arethra Franklin.  My son thought that was wonderful, and said, "Now I know why Dad married you, Mom!" Ha!  Maybe I should be a singer.

As for school, it is going well...but it is taking up more time than I would like.  So have mercy - I will write more this summer.  And hopefully publish more in 501Life.  And paint with my daughter.  And sew.  And take my son to baseball practice.  We'll garden, jog, play piano and read.  Life is good.