So I left town on the first of the month to spend two weeks preparing for my next foray into the Metrognomes universe. It's so far been an amazing experience. I thought I'd get to the manuscript sooner, but this has turned out to be a very necessary research retreat. I have literally saturated my mind in all things Metrognomes for almost two weeks now, and there are details in the short stories and the first novel that I'd forgotten about, things that came up and helped me get through when I was stuck on the story for the new novel. Things that make it all much more than it might have been, had I not taken this time to immerse myself in the canon I'd created between 2003 and 2007.

Today was exceptionally good, because it started out exceptionally difficult. After a few hours of work, I officially hit research burn-out. I couldn't take it anymore! I wanted nothing to do with gnomes! I was still stuck on several story points as well: the new villains were just too interesting; how would that balance out over the rest of the series? How does the new "big bad" in this book (Usurpator Rex) interact with the established "big bad" (Fenrir) in a way that is consistent with the character and doesn't interrupt the pacing of the story? And the ending...I've tossed and turned every night of this sabbatical over the ending; not because I didn't know how it ended, but because I did! The seed of this novel has always been a single scene at the end of the novel. That's the way I write; generally I envision a scene, an ending to a story, then I put all of my creative efforts into getting us there. I know how it ends. I know how every book in this series ends. For this one, after the dynamic story I have used to take us there, I felt that the ending was too abrupt. It just didn't leave us with enough to hold on to until the third book is published. I decided there had to be a little bit more at the end, but what? I was frustrated, stuck, burnt out on gnomes!

I went for a drive and decided just to relax, get away from the computer screen, meditate. I pulled up John Williams on my iPod and just let my mind go. John Williams really is chicken soup for the creative soul. Strangely, his music doesn't bring up images from his movies for me so much, unless I'm thinking about the movies to begin with, but as I listen to the music, all of the familiar imagery vanishes, and the music becomes autonomous. His scores are so emotional, they bring feelings to the surface, more than images. I do this with Erasure as well, but I really felt I needed something without words this time.

As I drove, my gnomes came back to me, in the music. They showed me how the answers I needed were already there. It's like walking away from a crossword puzzle. Everything comes together. I saw how Fenrir and Usurpator Rex would interact, how it would play out with the rest of the series and keep Fenrir consistent, and, most excitingly, how to smooth out the ending with an additional scene by emphasizing something I had foreshadowed, by going somewhere I wasn't going to go at all until the third book; it made so much sense, I don't know how else this book could possibly have closed! So now, instead of a two-part epilogue, it has broken brilliantly into three!

So, I have said goodbye to the research process. I've already taken in all of the minutia that I possibly can at this point, and it's more than enough to fuel me on this journey. The chapter outline is just falling into place as I type. Then it becomes just a matter of writing the manuscript, which, with everything Metrognomes at the forefront of my mind, I have confidence I'll be making much headway on in the weeks ahead before the summer.

Peace!