All Aboard!

We’re quite fond of our plot rainbow process, as regular readers of this blog will have no doubt noticed. We do tend to go on about it.

Despite its many shining advantages, there is one not-insignificant downside: it takes up a lot of room. A whole lot. And when you have members on your writing team as eager to help as Lady Marzipan and the Bandit Lord, it can be a problem. Our furry coauthors have learned that we don’t like it when they scamper around on the rainbow, scattering all the colorful squares willy-nilly, and they do a pretty good job of staying off it. But we can tell they resent it. They like to lay down riiiiight beside it and then casually streeeeetch their legs or shift their snouts into the danger zone. Lady Marzipan’s tail presents a whole other set of challenges. Plus, the two of them shed like they’re being paid to do it, and when the rainbow is spread out on the floor we can’t easily sweep or vacuum.

So instead of wallowing in filth with resentful dogs, we took action. We bought a whiteboard. It’s magnetic, double-sided, and on casters. It’s also freakin’ huge. We’re talking 4 x 8 feet (which is a lot more impressive in person than it looked online). We were going to include a picture of it here, but, I mean. It’s a whiteboard. You know what those look like. It will look a little more exciting once we get the grid drawn on it to keep the rainbow neat and organized.

Our Writing Cave redecoration project is coming along nicely. Jen finally found her inspiration. It’s going to be very cool. We’re just waiting for some samples to arrive before we really dive in. The funny thing is that this amazing new whiteboard is not going to be part of that redesign. We do the vast majority of rainbow-related work in the Auxiliary Writing Cave, which is on an entirely different floor of the SkelleyCo Amalgamated Fiction Enterprises HQ than the main Writing Cave, and have no interest in carting this beast up and down the stairs. It will live in the Aux Cave, and spend its off-season tucked beside the elliptical machine in the adjoining exercise room. We have other exciting ideas in store for the main Writing Cave. You’ll hear all about them, we’re sure, as we finalize our plans and do the actual work. And that project *will* be photo-worthy. We guarantee!

A writing partner is sometimes someone who will help assemble your new white elephant. Without complaint.