Best Laid Plans....

Well, we're going to have to wait a bit for the show and tell (with pictures!) of my colored index card plotting because . . . wait for it . . . my frackin' iMac crashed again. Only this time it took the entire hard drive with it. I swear, I have the worst mac luck ever. I know they are supposed to have better no-fail rates than PCs, but I've sure not found that to be the case. My first iMac crashed and burned (literally) three times, and this newest one has crashed twice in less than a year. Maybe I have the wrong kind of electromagnetic field or something.

Anywhoo, I'm typing this blog post from one of my son's old computers, tucked away in a spare bedroom that is stifling (we are having 94 degree weather today my So Cal coastal community!?) and I am not even sure it can accommodate my camera's software for loading and organizing photos, so that will have to wait until I get my machine back from the shop.

Speaking of computers, I saw one of those tiny ones and boy, are they tiny. Not very usable, I think, so I guess I will shelve that idea.

In other news, I did get a lot of great work done this weekend, culling my Cast of Thousands down to only a dozen or so noble families. Again, I want to evoke the court politics and plotting of the time, not drown the reader in medieval French lineages. And I figure if I was drowning, the reader would absolutely be drowning.

I also got some great character work done using some questions from a plotting template method from Michael Hague, screenwriter extrodinaire. Which may seem somewhat contradcitory--to get character answers from looking at plotting structure--but since I think plot IS character, it actually makes a fair amount of sense. You can check out the template here, but I'll talk about the questions he discussed in his presentation in tomorrow's post. Well, if there is a post tomorrow. I also got a jury summons and may have to go in for jury duty. This might just be my lost week. Thank god it didn't happen while I was on deadline!