No writing of my own. Looks like I'll be able to dig in next week, though.

Interesting post by a fellow writer re. the TV series Downton Abbey:

http://melissawyatt.livejournal.com/194552.html

I saw bits and pieces of this series, enough to get interested but not enough to find out what happened to some of the story threads that I caught in passing. I was appalled and aghast when I asked friends later how those story threads had played out--and found that they didn't play out. At all. Every situation I'd been wondering about had been dropped. Without even a conversation amongst the characters about the problems that had been raised.

It was a big wake-up call as a writer to see how awful it is when somebody just tootles around a story thinking up cool stuff then not following through on any of it. A good reminder, too, to keep track of story/character threads and make sure each one is given its due and builds properly. Also to think about how staying on top of individual threads can help me understand and construct the ending of the overall story.