Back at It

Today my wonderful husband gave me the morning to write. I went to a local coffee shop that had wi-fi and worked diligently on Daniel's Day, the story of a handicapped child and his siblings. I was surprised at how much I had already written. The story is really taking good shape. Tomorrow I will go visit friends who have a handicapped child and ask questions about how they go about their days. I'm interested mostly in how the other children work with the handicapped child. I feel as though I'm handling this in a very sensitive manner, and I genuinely want the piece to be educational, inspiring, and challenging. But I worry that in my ignorance, I may ask questions that seem callous. At the same time, I don't want to sugarcoat what the family is dealing with. Happily, this family is well-grounded and very open.

I also did something I've never done before--at least not on a computer. I reformatted the last two or three paragraphs with each of the 10-12 sentences on separate lines (not in paragraph form). Then I cut and pasted in order to get the right order. In the process I realized that there were some redundancies as well as sentences that were irrelevant. How difficult it is to part with favorite ideas or turns of phrase! But seeing each attempting to "stand" on its own made the superfluous sentences obvious.