Your Grand Vision, in 1000 words or less.

Writing the synopsis for class. Needs to summarize a 350-page novel in five pages. I working from a previous synopsis that's as valid and reliable as the maps of the coastal United States that the pilgrims had c. 1620. Two versions of my fantasy, the old and new, butting up together, and I'm trying to make it all fit.

No, I'm trying to write while my Xbox keeps calling me.

Cut off from news and gaming. Television as silent as a virgin's bed. Typing away, cutting and paste. Narrative surgery, weaving subplots together. I'm writing a book report on a novel that only exists in my head. Only two chapters are real, plus a handful of scenes. There's a intimadation going on here, writing up a summary of your vision. Purpose of exercise: Write something that will convince your future publisher to love your manuscript that they'll give you money to see how it turns out. I stare at the hundreds of books in my office and I wonder if all the authors represented felt the same sort of absurdist fear. Commodified dreams. A game of show and tell. I have a story, you have money. Is my story worth that money? The bookcases lie to me, because those books are the winners. No bookcases for the rejects.

Back to the synopsis. Did an oral version for class Tuesday, and when I got done I think I stunned my classmates. But the outline still feels too spongy, too shifting. So, refine, refine, refine. It's pan-sifting for gold.

Today
- Write
- Critique group
- Pixel-on-pixel violence in downtown Seattle for birthday get together
- Then dinner

And somehere in there: Finish laundry, shower, be nice to wife, and not turn on TV or Xbox.