Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill

Good long mixed day. Bob and I started out with a visit with Joanna, Tracy and ANDREA. (The big KDZ are still at the ranch). It was so pleasant to just hang out and talk baseball, books, babies in their home - peaceful. Then Ruth,Chris and Liam came over and Ruth took pictures of Liam (Thing One) and Andrea (Thing Two) with me in their little red costumes like the characters from The Cat In The Hat. Back before the babies were born we joked about who would be Thing One and who would be Thing Two regarding birth order and somewhere in the process Ruth bought the sweet sleepers - good to have the pictures today even though I didn't brush my hair before being caught on camera with a precious double armful. Part of the urgency regarding the pictures was that thought the garments are the same size Thing One and Thing Two are NOT - Liam having had a major recent growth spurt - so we wanted to catch them while the costumes still fit. For a peek you can check out http://liamslife.shutterfly.com/ourgalleries or http://andreasgrace.shutterfly.com/. Note the difference in foot size between the two "things" and the hand holding which was spontaneous, not posed.

After family time Bob and Bill and I met to do our Snowflake Method writing meeting. I like the way this is flowing for me. They seem to feel the same. Step two, to turn the original sentence into a paragraph which lays out the basic progression of the novel int "three disasters and a resolutoin" is still short enough to share in the blog - so here is where I am so far. I did, obviously choose my first option about the two old friends starting a clinic.

Snowflake Step One

Two middle aged therapists risk danger and personal failure when they open a clinic for the uninsured in a tough neighborhood.


Snowflake Step Two

Libby and Becca, former college roommates, in their late fifties now, rekindle reconnect in an effort to establish a low cost mental health clinic for the uninsured in the now rundown hose the shared during the seventies. Libby, a therapist has just left her state agency job in disgust at failures of the system and Becca’s husband has asked her for a divorce, so both are at cross roads and crises of competence. The challenge of restoring the house and opening the clinic doors shakes both women as they discover the deterioration and increased violence of the neighborhood, but they find unexpected allies who help them continue. Once the clinic is open, Libby struggles with questions of ethics and competence as case after case tests her sense of her professional skills. After Becca is stabbed by the mother of a child the women have been working to find placement for, her husband pleads with her to return to the marriage. She and Libby both must decide whether to abandon or continue their dream.