I'm still pinned down by the last dregs of my cold. Blech. However, that hasn't prevented me from being productive (wahoo!) and if I work hard this week, I should still make my goal of having a complete, relatively polished draft of In the Face of the Sun wrapped up by March 31, at which time I will be casting my net for eyeballs. Should you wish to volunteer yours, leave me a comment? I know a few of my regular peeps are at the ready (you rock, you guys!) but I'm always open to new eyeballs.

What's In the Face of the Sun about, you might ask? Well, it's upper YA (maybe cross-over? Dunno - I'm leaving that in Ms. Agent's hands) that mixes medieval cosmology, theories about tuning, acoustics, and harmonics, and one very broken girl up with a bunch of barbarians and a violin. I have been told my barbarians are quality barbarians, by the way. This pleases me to no end.

And, in light of all of that, I've decided to do something I'm calling Music Mondays. A few people said they liked my alternative offerings of Christmas music last year, so I thought I'd offer up some music that I love that isn't in the canon of classical offerings, because I think that a lot of people dismiss classical music as boring or stodgy because all they've ever been exposed to are the warhorses, which have their place, but they're hardly representative of classical music as a whole.

So, as my first offering, I'm presenting "I'vo bene" performed by the Newberry Consort. The soprano is Ellen Hargis, one of my former teachers, and one of the best early music singers EVER as far as I'm concerned (not to mention the fact she's one of the most intelligent people I've ever met). Anyhow, enjoy!

I'm approaching 30,000 words of clean, revised, polished copy on In the Face of the Sun. I think I've got the voice and the tone where I want it. I think I've nailed down the atmospheric palette and the lexicon of images I'm working with with. I think I've got my brain around the characters and the dynamics between them. I think I've clarified everybody's motivations (man, some of the folks in this story are crafty!)...I think, I think!

I have a few loose threads still to tease out and weave back in, but I think, I think...I think I might be happy with where this is going.

*big sigh of relief!*

And, with luck, I'll still make my target of getting a complete draft wrapped up by the end of February (the unclean version is hovering around 70,000, though that should change tomorrow now that I've figured out a plot issue that was plaguing me). I would be very, very pleased if that comes to pass!

And for a reward, I have decided I shall sleep in tomorrow. And maybe make some pancakes. Yes. Pancakes!