truepenny | Roads? Where we're going, we don't *need* roads.

So, amongst the many problems confronting me in my persona as Mr Earbrass (with pen, ink, scissors, paste, a decanter of sherry, and a vast reluctance ...), my editor pointed out, very kindly, that The Mirador's structure is not so much a structure as a dog's breakfast.

Now, partly, this is due to a lack of signage (which is a not uncommon problem in my works), and that can be fixed.

Partly, it's due to the fact that I was and am trying to do something difficult and contrary, i.e., write a secondary world fantasy novel without a quest to structure it.

This is harder than you might think, especially if none of your characters are farmboys-who-are-sekritly-kings.

But this too can be dealt with by better signage, and, well, now that I've done it, I know what I'm doing, and can therefore do it better. (Learn by doing.)

But partly, it's due to the fact that two of the three major plot strands do not make sense unless, like the White Queen, you consider it a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.

Between my editor,

matociquala,

mirrorthaw, and me, I've figured out that much of what I need to do is rearrange the order in which certain events happen. (Pen, ink, scissors, paste, decanter of sherry, vast reluctance, check.) However--and here's the sticky bit--I cannot now and never have been able to hold all of this book in my head at once. So I'm rearranging structural elements of a structure I can't see. I can't even think of a metaphor to explain how much this makes my brain hurt.

So if I'm more than usually Eeyorish for the month of October, y'all will know why.

[GUILDENSTERN consults his watch.]
ROS: [without looking around] Shut up.
GUIL: I didn't say anything.
ROS: You have a sigh Leon Trotsky's icepick would envy.
GUIL: It's not like you don't know we have a deadline.
ROS: I'm working.
GUIL: Point of order: you are dungeon-crawling.
ROS: I'm thinking! It's like working.
GUIL: Only without the part where you actually get anything done. [beat] But don't mind me. I'm sure you have a master plan you just haven't bothered to tell me about.
ROS: Shut. Up.
[GUILDENSTERN consults his watch.]