“You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at once.” — Oprah Winfrey

How’s NaNo going for the rest of you? I slept well after making my decision, and spent a good afternoon with my knitting and wallowing in the glorious schmaltz of the Judy Garland version of A Star is Born. The high point, naturally, is Garland’s rendition of “The Man Who Got Away.” Beautiful, iconic ballad about the one-man woman lookin’ for the man who got away. Letting the sound of Judy at her best wash over me, I couldn’t help thinking about one of my characters. As the story opens, that’s the position she’s in, thinking her one man has got away. But it turns out he’s the wrong man, that the man who walks into her life during the course of the story is that one man.

The thing is, that got me thinking about what her mindset is as the story opened. She’s putting on a brave face and she’s getting tired of people asking if she’s okay — but she’s also hurting inside. It’s the combination of those to factors that cause her to set in motion the events of the book. I knew it, but I didn’t know it. Now, I have to go think about that relationship a little more, why she was convinced he was the man for and why she’s wrong, and that may well change some things.

But that’s why they call it “discovery”, isn’t it?