One Last Petal

Hullo all! I missed a couple weeks as I was on vacation - more to the point, I was on a train! Orson Scott Card once said, “Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any." I believe this is especially true on a train. Everyone on board has a different story: from the young couple backpacking across the country; to the young family taking a day's excursion; to the attendant who has been working the rails for twenty years; to the businessman typing furiously on his laptop the entire trip. What are their stories? Who are they? Where are they from, and where are they going? What made them decide to take the train instead of some other form of transportation?  So many stories just sitting right there in front of you, and that's just the people on the train with you. What about the big cities whose twinkling lights shine in through your window late at night? The sleepy towns...

Progress!! Hurrah!! Except, there hasn't been as much progress as there should have been this month, unfortunately. I knew that the first part of the month would be busy with family-related things, and various distractions from Real Life, which is why I made my goal rather low. I didn't expect quite so much to happen, pulling me away from my nice quiet evenings of writing. Life seems to be settling a little bit now, so I'm confident I can get back on track before the end of the month, especially as there are two Saturdays in there with no plans at the moment. Other than helping a friend move. Oops. Probably shouldn't have offered to help in April... In terms of the story, I think it's progressing fairly well. Perhaps a little more slowly than I had anticipated, but based on previous critiques, earlier exposition seemed like a good idea. My goal is to have a good solid base for the trilogy, so that I don't have to worry about remembering to explain th...