Get Ready, Get Set...

The plot is laid, the characters are waiting in the wings, and the story is ready to commence. Tomorrow, I can begin writing about Tara, Anne Elizabety, and Samantha (or whatever they're calling her today)!

Since I settled on the idea for this book, I've been jotting down ideas for subjects, or things that will come up in the course of the letters. So, for the sake of organization, I thought I'd just jot them down here, so that all my musings about this project so far end up in one place.

• I think Tara will not even divulge her illness in the first few letters - she hasn't quite come to terms with it yet, so she won't speak about it. When she does, it will at first be with sort of a nonchalance, an attempt to hide her true fears...
• Some of the letters will be "how to" letters...for example, how to have a bad marriage, how to really enjoy the sunset, how to bake a cake or make a pot roast...
• Since Anne Elizabeth keeps changing the ideas for the babies names, Tara will talk about some of her favorite names, or a time in her life when she wanted to change her name...
• I toyed with the idea of Tara having lost a baby once, or even had an abortion...
• The phrase, "just so you know" will recur in the letters, evidence of Tara's "just in case" attitude about her disease...
• Some other topics that will come up - organized religion, and her lack of interest in it (she will find just as much opportunity to commune with God in her Sunday morning walk in the park as sitting inside a stuffy church building)...listening to Renaissance music and thinking about the people alive in those days, and how she could be a descendant of someone alive then...
• Her feelings about books and words will also be a recurring theme...the library as a great source of wonder...how there was never enough time to read all the books she wanted. She will go to the library often and bring home "great armfuls" of books, attempting to devour them all. "For that was the great thing about the library - unlike most everything else available in the world, there were no limits on how many books you could bring home with you. They were all there, free for the taking, as many as your arms could carry..."

And speaking of books ~ it's just about time to get this one on the road...