27 Story and Plot

Hello to everyone I met at the Bangor Authors' Book Fair or whatever its name was! It was fantastic to meet you and talk to you. I have so many great memories from that day. Truly, I can't shut up about it. 

I put the books up for sale on the emmaburns.org website under Merch with the same prices I had at the book fair, cheaper than through Amazon. It costs $12 to ship Priority with their envelopes so that's what I used for shipping price. But if you're within about half an hour of the Bangor area, I'll drop books off for free. If the system fights you on that and insists on shipping, just email me and we'll figure it out. 

That event was so much fun, but now I am a pale shadow of my former self and can only lie about going "unnnnnh" and doing absolutely nothing. So between that and family events I'm wrecked.

Too much GOING PLACES and DOING THINGS yet AGAIN. I did more of that in the past week than in the past year. I'll have to tell you about the Duncan Phyfe sofa from like 1830 at the latest that I re-dislocated my shoulder wrestling into the house wrapped in a tarp (the sofa, not me) during a torrential rainstorm. Absolute madness. Cannot use my left arm without loud crunching, especially after my dog tried to remove it from my body lunging at her cousins yesterday. Anyway Duncan is a whole thing. I threw a mushroom fleece over it, even though it's going to get reupholstered. I say that in passive, but I'M going to REUPHOLSTER it once I can use my SEMI-DETACHED LEFT ARM.

I would not have said I'd give my left arm for a Duncan Phyfe sofa, but here we are.

I am on the job.

Today's episode is about story versus plot, what they are, why we need to think about both of them, and what they both mean.

I just read Hart Hanson’s novel The Seminarian yesterday, so it’s very much on my mind as that book does both extremely well.

Story and plot: different things. You could have the same plot tell very different stories. For example, depending on whose role you’re focusing on, things will change. But also think about how very many stories contain a hero’s journey plot but tell wildly different stories about the characters going through that plot.

Other topics: what is up with season six of Agents of SHIELD? The 40/40 draft continuing. This excellent novel The Nerve that I have to release from my clutches finally. And more!

Sacred cheese of life!