Well, it’s another day writing on the screened porch for me. Nice breezes, and the dogwood tree petals (now sadly spent) fluttering down onto the lawn like a mild snowfall, the kind you don’t have to shovel.

But it was a hard day just the same, because I’ve now reached the point in my novel where I have to write about the love affair that is at the heart of this book. I mean, I have to think of all the reasons that this married woman would risk everything to be involved with this married man. In my outline for the book, at the point of this chapter, it just says: “AND THEN THEY FALL IN LOVE. WRITE GOOD, BRILLIANT WRITING ABOUT LOVE.”

Luckily, for times like this, there are other writers. And Alice Munro does it so exquisitely perfectly, and so I’m reading some short stories by her to put me in the mindset of writing about why Annabelle fell in love with Jeremiah when she already loved Grant. Maybe it’s that she doesn’t love Grant enough; I’ve certainly planted that seed in this book so far, and I may have to go back and change that a bit, make her love him a little bit more. But maybe she loves him but reconizes that he is flawed, like she is, but then Jeremiah kind of sweeps her off her feet and out of her safety zone. It’s tricky, I’m not going to lie to you.

And meanwhile the porch is warm and the breeze is soft, and it’s so much more fun to read Alice Munro’s already published stories than to write my own, although I have a DRIVE to write this just right. I have to let go of the “doing it just right,” I think, and just DO IT, and then I can get it right later. Correct? Yes.

Jordie is sleeping right beside me in the shade, which is good because lately when he is awake he is making noises like HUH HUH HUH HUH HUH. And–well, he is lovable, like all golden retrievers, but lately, it must be said, he pumps out air as though he were a stinky air machine. I would like to get up and get more iced tea, but I’m afraid I’d hit the “on” switch on the stinky air machine, and then I’d have another hour before he could calm down again and go back to sleep.

I’m left asking myself the hard questions, like why oh why, did I give Jeremiah and his wife twin toddlers? That makes it sooo much worse. I tried to take them out of the book, but no, I think they’re really there. I think Annabelle had an affair with a man who had toddlers.

What do you do when your characters don’t behave correctly?