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Yesterday I had nineteen pages, but at the end of the day I was convinced I’d gone down a rabbit hole.  What do I mean by that?  I first heard "rabbit hole" used for writing in a workshop taught by Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, and Stephen Gould, way back before I’d sold anything.  Emma used the term, for those plot points that take you away from where you thought you were going and lead you either to Wonderland, and a great idea, or lead you down a pointless adventure that doesn’t belong in the book, or doesn’t work at all.  I was really convinced I had fallen down the rabbit hole with the last day’s work, but I’ve learned to never, ever, delete it at the end of the day.  At the end of the day I’m too tired to judge anything clearly, so I put it aside, and waited for morning and a clearer head.  But I was completely convinced that I’d wasted my work day, and it was all wrong for this book, these characters, etc . . .  Morning comes and a little sleep is a wonderful thing.  I set the pages out to read in my office, still certain that they sucked and I’d have to start over for this section.  But, lo, and behold, the pages read fine.  I had to jump back a paragraph, but the rest was all keepers.  Relief.

How did I learn the lesson of leaving the rabbit hole alone until time had passed?  By remembering the time I deleted twenty-five pages at the end of the day, and the next morning realized that it was exactly what needed to happen.  I ended up having to rewrite it all the next day.  Lesson learned: simply wait until morning, then decide.  Easy, if you don’t rush yourself.  Some mornings you read it over and it’s as awful as you thought it was, so you get rid of it, but more often, than not, it’s fine. 

I did write myself into a corner today, though.  The arduer is activated and we are alone.  The closest "feed" would be Edward, Olaf, or Bernardo.  Not good choices.  Okay, okay, I know that there is a contingent of fans that have been voting for Edward and Anita to get together, but let’s face it, disaster doesn’t cover it.  I’d really rather avoid that particular problem.  Olaf, is self-explanatory, but oddly, to me, there are also fans that vote for him as a pairing with Anita.  Again, disaster seems too mild a word.  That leaves Bernardo.  I can’t, honestly, find a problem with him, other than I think he’ll be one of those men that’s hard to work with once you sleep with him.  I know that he’s had a lot of fans voting for him since his first, and only, appearance in OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY, but it still doesn’t feel right for the scene.  Frankly, even the other marshals are not within shouting distance.  I’ve made a list of other options.  The arduer being this activated will attract the vamps who know her, but she’s already fed on the only vamps that traveled to Vegas for her.  That leaves wereanimals.  Haven did come to town, but I was really trying to save him for a daylight feed.  It’s night, and seems like we should use the vampires while we have them.  I think one of the reasons that I wanted the scene to be a rabbit hole, was that I was afraid that we would end up here with the arduer and no one close by.  Well, Marmee Noir is very close by, but that is like the opposite of helpful.  I honestly don’t know how to get out of this, but it worked for the arduer to rise here.  So, fine it worked, but now what?  Frankly, I don’t know.  So, again, I’ll leave it alone and wait until morning.  I know that yesterday morning I woke up knowing exactly how to fix a problem that had stumped me the day before.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed that my subconscious will have another flash of insight over night.  If not, then tomorrow morning will be a hammer and nail day.  That means that inspiration has not struck, at all, but I’m up against a deadline, so I sit at my desk and hammer it out.  Yes, I know that tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  I’ll work in the morning, and go to Jon’s family in the afternoon for turkey and all the fixings.  It will be a real challenge to the Jenny Craig plan, not to fall off the food wagon.  It helps me keep my resolve not to splurge that I’m in a pair of jeans that is two sizes smaller than when I started on Jenny.  It’s a pair of jeans that had sat in my closet for years.  I’d determined that if I wasn’t in them by the end of the year, I had to get rid of them.  But, I get to keep them.  Yea!  This meal plan proves that all the adults in my life that told me to eat my fruits and veggies, as a child, were right.  Damn.