Things are whirring along this semester. It's hard to believe it's already almost midterm - today was the first day of real (meaning "graded") speeches in speech class and the first exam in PR class. I've also been busy with my book since making the decision to publish it. I've finished the interior layout with InDesign and am now creating the cover in my spare time. Who knew there were so many decisions to agonize over, such as whether Adobe Garamond Pro or Californian FB is the better font, or whether a small drawing I made for the title page will make the book look "homemade," as my mother says? It reminds me of a line from a song on Barbra Streisand's Broadway album - "Every minor detail is a major decision...."
While all that's going on, I've also been trying to figure out exactly what to do with the ending of my second book. One morning I sent my sister (who is a wonderful sounding board for ideas) an email that began, "I need you to help me kill someone." I needed a believable way for someone in a rural setting to die in the early nineteenth century - disease? Accident?
I won't go into what we decided. But the conversation with her led me to another conversation with my husband in which he helped me work out the specifics of how this death could happen. Between the two of them, I have a pretty good idea of how this character is going to meet her demise.
The whole experience made me remember one of my favorite scenes from Shakespeare in Love:
Many thanks to my two incarnations of Kit Marlowe for all their inspiration!
