Thinking, here. Yesterday I wrote mostly dialogue, but--looking back--a lot of it is informational. It's getting in stuff the reader needs to understand. One writer friend insists that dialogue is action, but to me--when I write it--it can feel unsatisfying. I need to go back and least make this part do double duty by letting the characters show who they are and letting the reader absorb their personalities a little. However, I don't want to do that today. I was thinking that there will necessarily be conversations setting up some of the story in these first chapters,but I need to maybe focus on the scenes that drive change, the scenes of conflict and emotion. And then let the milder setting-up scenes fall into place around them. That might help me a) not waste time writing out conversations that don't need to take place yet or at all, and b) keep my eyes on the prize, which is keeping myself moving forward and not getting lost in a sea of backstory and set-up.

I was going to say, "keeping the reader moving forward," but that's not right. I need to keep myself focused and in motion, or I will peter out into a fog of uncertainty, and so will the ms.

Yesterday I spent entirely too much time trying to explain and describe farming practices and choices, and the interior of a peasant's cottage. I was trying to write in order, figuring I would get these scenes out on paper, then go back and hook them together with transitions. That's making me feel foggy and like I'm losing momentum. So today I am going to try to leap out of order, to find a scene where something important happens, something that changes the story, and write that. Because I don't like the feeling I'm getting, of slowly getting mired in a morass of details that bring me to a grinding halt.

I have several choices re. what to work on, but must figure out which one might be ready to be written. I hope at least one of them is.