We had four wonderful ladies show up to meet with me and my mom and the center’s director.

Just as I had hoped, my “idea seeds” were thoroughly kicked around and burned (I mean this in a good way) until we had the right stuff to plant.

We left with assignments assigned and the next meeting scheduled and a real sense of accomplishment and doability.

As I dropped off my mom she checked to make sure she hadn’t stepped on my toes by how much she jumped in and guided the conversation.

“No,” I said, “You were great. People their age aren’t used to being led by someone my age. They respond to me, but they listen to you. ”

She nodded. “And when I’m the oldest person in my group, I’m invisible.”

“It only means we should keep working together,” I said.

~

One of my favorite parts, I’ll admit, was to be able to step on top of the current (interesting but not imminently necessary) conversation and say, “We’ve got five minutes left, let’s verify tasks and schedule the next meeting.”

I’ve always been the type of person who wants to say that, but today was the first time I actually had the authority to do so.

~ ~ ~

Finished scene 36 tonight.
Just re-read the first draft of a promising project and nearly gagged. Which is fine.  It’s just a rough draft and I expect it to have obvious flaws.

What I’m actually scared of is having “real” readers/writers go through my mss (manuscript) and know they have the same feeling about my multiple-revision work that I did about my first draft.