Well, I got a little distracted by the shocking international news of Donald Trump's election. I think we all did.

Lots of people have written lots of thoughtful pieces about that, including Ali Michael, Josh Marshall, and Garrison Keillor.

I don't have much to add except I'm hoping all of the women will keep their pantsuits on and show up like never before. We'll probably have to donate to Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and we'll also have to put our bodies in the streets. There will be other things.

One other thing will be to read extensively and to produce good work. Reading, as Anna Quindlen reminded me, is a democratic act. It builds empathy and it increases your ability to participate as a citizen.

Producing my little fiction writing project - a beach read, really - seems pretty insignificant, but I'm doing it.  I've been averaging 563 words per day during the month of November. I've cracked the 5k mark in NaNoWriMo. The whole thing is 110 paperback pages long.

As luck would have it, my teacher's assignment this week is to assemble the whole book. I won't be able to do that because I don't have all of the parts written. But, I will be able to create chapters and write little chunks of them as placeholders. By the end of the weekend, the whole book will be started.

And, I should be able to see if my story holds up and where the holes are. I'm tripping over one major hole already. The main character - one of them, the teacher - gets threatening voicemails at her home number. It's a big deal that this happens. It's her inciting incident. And, I'm thinking there has to be kind of a twist with the messages.

And, shhhhhh. This part is a secret: I don't know who's leaving the voicemails. I've got some suspects, but I really don't know why they're doing it exactly and what they're getting out of it.

So, that seems like something to figure out post-haste, yes? Maybe this week?  I'll give it a go.