Adventures of Book 2

I'm about a third of the way into Book 2 (about 30,000 words), and I'm discovering all sorts of interesting things about characters I thought I knew but have darker sides than I realized. This is one of my favorite and most nervewracking parts of the writing process. Even when I make a plot outline to follow, I find myself constantly straying from it because halfway through a chapter, something will happen and one of my characters will go "Hold on, I'm not going to say that. That's not who I am. I'm going to do THIS instead." And he/she will go off and do something that completely shocks me. Today is full of this sort of craziness. One of my characters has mutinied against me, and become something I didn't realize he/she could be. Weird. O_o

It solved a few plot problems I was having, but added new ones in the process. So I stopped writing for now, and for the next few days I'm going to do some plotting again to see if I can find my way back to something that makes sense. :) Hopefully in time for NanoWriMo. I highly doubt I'll be able to finish Nano, but I'd really really like to finish my first draft of Book 2 by the end of this year so I have some leeway to knock it into something presentable by the time my due date (April-ish of next year) rolls around!

In other news, Boyfriend and I were driving around this afternoon when he saw a big "Meg 2010" (i.e. Meg Whitman) campaign poster in a store window:

Boyfriend: Look. Meg 2010.
Me: MiG 2010? Ooooh, is that a new model? Where?
Boyfriend: ... No. MEG WHITMAN 2010.
Me: *utter disappointment* Oh. Not a new Russian fighter jet?
Boyfriend: Sometimes I wonder about you.

I ended up watching videos all afternoon of Russian fighter jets and listening to the Top Gun anthem. Then I ate a lot of pistachios. And that rounds out my writing day. :) (If my boss is reading this, I also did all of my day job work. Diligently. Scout's honor.)

And of course I leave you with one of the best anthems evar: