Well, I thought this would be a long, empty weekend, since Patrick left for Bristol last night to pick up our car (Maria? Helen? the vital issue of its name has not yet been resolved). Just shows how unused I am to living in a closeknit village. Today is packed! I've got a date to go see the horse show at a local farm in about half an hour, then I'm going with another friend to the Village Fete (across the street) for cream teas and a jumble sale at two o'clock. Then we're going for an out-of-town drive later in the afternoon, I'm having dinner at a friend's house tonight...wow. This is really, really nice. I love living where I do. I grew up in a really fantastic neighborhood with lots of cool coffeeshops and things to do, and I've lived since then in numerous interesting and/or comfortable places, but I've never lived anywhere I felt so much part of a real community and so connected to my neighbors. It's a good feeling. And far better than sitting around the house feeling depressed, which had been my earlier plan.

In the meantime, I'm trying to rethink Queen of Thorns, and darn it, it's really difficult. What it all comes down to (as I figured out late last night), is that I actually need to figure out for myself what kind of book I want it to be, and what I really want the overarching theme to be. As is, I've got a plot, I've got characters--but those could all be reshuffled in a nearly-infinite number of ways, without any of them being necessarily the "Right" way. Hmm. So I have to be decisive, for once. Drat.

Back to the new wolf story, while I think about it....