Pollen, point of view, and people

It’s raining pollen here. Seriously. You can stand in my yard and watch it shower down around you, on you. My lovely red car, parked in the driveway, now has a fine yellow-green tint. Needless to say, I’m taking my allergy med.

I’m working on honing my deep-third point of view skills. I’ve already edited the first couple chapters to deepen Meredith’s pov, and I’m using it for Jalal as I write more in Part II. I found that I’ve always thought in deep-third, but revised it to just limited third as I typed. So now I can stop censoring myself. What I can’t stop is rewriting my first paragraph! I have seven versions so far, none of which sings to me. Or maybe I’ve gone deaf.

My bigger problem is that my critique partners were less than thrilled with the introduction of my third main character. So now, I’m trying to figure out how to revise that. Late last night, I finally realized a part of the problem. This character’s personality has changed from my original conception, but I failed to remove all traces of the former, causing a conflict with her current incarnation. She’s a great character and she’s exactly the right person to come into Jalal’s life at this point, but her introduction was clumsily executed. It’s back to the keyboard—eventually. For now, I’ll have to slam a few hundred Wii tennis and golf balls until I’m inspired. I’d rather play Bejeweled, Twist Text, or Candy Cruncher, but I really should exercise more than my mind. Really. I should.