Meredith Mansfield, Author

I now know exactly what happens in the next several chapters of BEYOND THE PROPHECY–and I’m still not making much progress. It’s not editor brain (at least, I don’t think it is). It’s my brain during a heat wave.

I don’t know how many of you have read Terry Pratchett. (If you haven’t, you should.) A subseries in his Disc World series deals with the Night Watch, which (after the advent of Carrot, anyway) includes not just humans, but dwarves, a werewolf, and a mountain troll. I don’t remember the troll’s name off the top of my head, but I do remember this little plot point.

The troll was big, strong, and intimidating to the bad guys. He was also dumber than dirt–until one night he got locked in an ice house. Then he was brilliant. So one of the dwarves built him a hat that would keep his head cool so that he could be smart all the time.

I need someone to invent that hat in this world. The kind of concentration it takes to write a first draft simply eludes me right now.

Maybe my efforts would be better directed to a little revision for the duration. They say this heat wave will end soon–but we all know how much we can trust weathermen. I’ve gotten the first critique back on THE IGNORED PROPHECY and it looks like I may have a lot of work to do on that. Sequels are hard. More on that in my next post.