i guess i know how the story is going to go from here on in. Sort of. Don't know when i'm going to have time to write it. Friday I'm supposed to work at home. The office is sort of a disaster, as everything has been dismantled for painting/carpeting. I'm sure I have plenty of time to get at least the outline of the story written this weekend. Maybe i'll get to 20,000 words.

The weird thing is the number of holy books I've had on my desk while writing it. First, the book of Judges, because the story within the story is Deborah, written by Debra's high school friend Segullah. I'm imagining a feature length musical epic based on about a page in Judges. I couldn't write it, but my fictional character Segullah could. Does. Did. She wrote the screenplay and the book of the musical based on her novel of the same name.

Then, while writing the scene where Debra goes with Segullah to a Friday Shabbat service some Hebrew words and a tune that has always haunted me, I don't know where I know it from, started running through my head, and I typed the words into Google and discovered it was the 133rd Psalm. So then I had the book of Psalms on my desk. (I'm getting away from my usual Ashkenazic/Yiddish spellings because Abayudaya Jews of Uganda say Shabbat and synagogue, not Shabbos and shul. I want to try harder to find out if there's a word for synagogue in their local language of Lugandan. But I think they want to use the words that other Jews use.)

So I think I'll be able to wrap the story up by the deadline of Nov. 30, if not the word count.