Starting Rough...

"Thank heavens we can skip the rough draft and go straight to the good stuff! It’s such a drudge figuring out all that motivational detail."

Lilly, I have no intentions of skipping the rough draft. You wouldn’t build a house on top of the dirt without first putting down a foundation, would you?

"How big of a house and how long would you want it for?"

We’re not skipping the rough draft. It’s where all the treasures are hid. The most exciting part of the creative process, if you ask me. You look up something to check on accuracy and – boom! -- discover an entirely new possibility that threads in perfectly. Takes me beyond my own ideas. Too flat and confining to have to depend solely on my own scope of imagination. Besides, I’m way too dependent on those intricate details of other people’s lives to breathe life into a character without them. Those little nuances that have actually happened to somebody – no matter how bizarre -- make fiction more real, somehow. I love that.

"But we already have the rough draft for this one."

Well, it’s outdated.

"How could it be outdated if it’s set into a specific time and place? What do you think, Ann? Have you even been listening to a word we’ve said? You can work on that list anytime. Who knows when D. Ann Graham will show up, again?"

"What? Oh. I’m going to have to agree with Lilly. We did a lot of research on this one, and I don’t see how the word ‘outdated’ can even apply to research. Unless you’re talking methods. Which is the Professor’s department."

"Ann, we’re talking about rough drafts, not research. Pay attention, will you? I think D. Ann Graham wants to start the rough draft all over, again."

"Well, then it wouldn’t be a rough draft. It would be a rewrite."

Mere technicality. I’m calling it a rough draft for the simple reason that we seem to have entirely lost the original copy.

"Oh, good lord – not again! I thought Ann was backing everything up."

"Whatever was there, I backed up. It must have been lost before we put in the new system. If that’s what you meant by outdated, I agree. But don’t worry, Lilly, it won’t take long because it isn’t really lost. Just percolating around in her brain somewhere. So, you’d better get to work on your accessories and details, because I have a feeling… you see? She’s gone already."


What's happening on the farm today: Another spring day smack in the middle of winter -- even Nature doesn't seem to know what to make of it. Bugs are hatching, birds are house-hunting, and the leeks are popping up in the garden already. Why, I had a beautiful one to add to the chicken soup, yesterday. Weather predictions are for a freeze tomorrow... but today, I'm going to hoe in the garden!