Gracious gifts from the novel fairy

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Container nasturtiums on the back steps that scratch my gardening itch.

With forty pages left to read, I am over the moon with my series starter. Often after I step away from a manuscript, I wonder if during my absence, a sprite accesses the story, sprinkling magical dust throughout the novel. When I return to give it a read, I find the prose is snappier, characters are well-rounded, plot lines are taut. Did I actually compose these scenes, form these sentences, shape these protagonists? If it wasn't me, then definitely a pixie has infiltrated my computer.

No guarantees the second installment will seem this pleasant, lol. Yet I can only deal with one book at a time, and right now I'm quite enjoying what I have tentatively titled A Love Story. Not the most singular name, I grant you, but each part of this series will also possess an overall moniker, reinforced with a numeral, then a secondary title. I don't mind giving away the secondary title, but will keep the main identifier under wraps for a while. The Hawk was differentiated merely by Parts 1, 2, etc. Alvin's Farm was the name of the first book of said series, the following novels each with their own title. And while my current saga only has two manuscripts completed, the next two are clear in my mind, relative to the wide scope of what I have envisioned. Those titles are firm, but after that, I might be seeking the Novel Fairy for assistance.

I don't know when I'll sit down to start Book 3; August is shaping up to be another month teeming with friends, maybe family too. I have quilts to start, which means fabrics to cut. The garden is its own animal this summer; green beans both bush and pole are starting to produce, but the bush variety is lackluster, and both belong to my better half, ha ha. My sunflowers are doing well as are late-planted nasturtiums and sweat peas, the petunias still blooming. Flowers are about all I can ponder growing in the foreseeable future, our summers here not warm enough for me to bother putting random veg into the ground. I'd rather sow plot twists, nurturing characters and their foibles. I'll weed out the unnecessary punctuation and whatever else is redundant, pruning chapters into well-shaped collections of glorious story-making. Or the pixies will, lol. If nothing else, my heart is happy in a semi-writing vein; maybe the sprites sprinkled dust on me too.

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