ROW80, Sarah's Key and Brian Jacques

etween dinner, editing, sleep, work, and dinner again, I just spent every free moment of the last 24 hours reading Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. A brilliant, moving, absorbing book set in France, the US and Italy, 1942 and 2002. If you haven't read it yet, do.

On page 60 of 180, 48,527 words of 139,030, of Out of the Water and I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. Still sticking to my original A Round of Words in 80 Days goal of editing at least a page a day but the MS is still littered with close to 3,000 square brackets.

Turns out Misha's going through the same thing, and her advice is sound. One word at a time, that's the only way.

At least I'm still in love with my story and my characters, and their love for each other. If I have such a pleasant time seeing Rosa and Baha together, living through their adventures, I simply have to make sure I write their story in such a way as to give everyone else that joy.

Meanwhile, in keeping with my series of Why Doesn't My Newspaper Report on the Important Things, I've found out through Linda Gerber that Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall series, has passed away. I first found out about his work through author and playwright Michel Tremblay, who recommended him at a reading for his own book, The City in the Egg.