SHE WROTE: Oh, Canada, Part 3

I'm sitting in my hotel room, all alone so stop speculating, at 8AM, working for the next two and a half hours, all alone because Bob had to leave three hours ago to catch his flight home but he swears he'll be working while traveling the entire day because we'll both get home at midnight (he has hellacious layovers in Houston and Atlanta). [And speaking of Bob and in reference to the free-for-all going on in the comments, for those of you who once thought it would be darling if Bob and I were a couple, I'm more than ten years older than he is, so Ewwww to you, too. Sheesh.]

Where was I? Right, Bob's typing in the friendly skies, and I'm typing in my hotel room. Why? Because we discovered that Act Four was wrong, wrong, wrong, but it's okay because Bob discovered the key to the problem so we spent yesterday when we weren't teaching wargaming it (I used to call that brainstorming back in my innocent solo days) except Bob keeps forgetting I'm here. He was stretched out on the couch in my room staring at the ceiling, and I was on the bed with my laptop on my knees and my notes spread out around me in a semi-circle, trying to keep everything in order while I checked to make sure the flamingos had an arc (no, I am not kidding, you got a motif, you better make sure it arcs, boopsie) and he's saying, "I can fix this, I can fix this," and I'm saying, "I'm right here, Bob, remember me, your COLLABORATOR?" Then he went back to his room and a couple of hours later e-mailed me that he was hungry so I met him in the hotel restaurant and we talked about how we lost track of the five million dollars and why in one scene the entire cast of characters wouldn't have turned another character upside down to find it, and argued out another couple of points and probably looked like loons to everybody else there, and then we went back upstairs to our separate rooms again where I arced the five million and Bob must have beat his head against the wall because we exchanged these e-mails:


Bob: I'm fried. I'll make this work.

Jenny: Remember when WE used to make this work? Is there a reason you're tired of collaborating with me?

Bob: Ok. We're fried. We'll make this work.


But you know he's still trying to go it alone, up there in the bumpy skies across the Rockies. Sigh.

Meanwhile, I'm arcing subplots and cleaning up the first three acts and spiffing up the wedding vows and probably cutting this cute interlude where a little girl runs out of the seats during the wedding because I think it makes Bob gag. And I think we can keep a lot of Act Four which is good because during the worst of yesterday, we thought we were going to have to jettison most of it. But I think most of it is still good, it's just the climax that's bad, and Bob's loading weapons now so by the time he rolls onto his barrier island at midnight, he should have the firepower down, and by the time I see my river at midnight, Agnes should have swung her last frying pan and then tomorrow we explain to each other and swap scenes and we're good for the last polish. Nothing but good times ahead.

And some day I'm actually going to SEE CANADA. You know, besides the airport,the highway,and the conference hotel. I did see Montreal once, at night, during a conference. It was amazing. And I walked through Victoria one afternoon during a conference, that was lovely. I understand there's some real estate in between the two cities. Might want to check that out some time. More sigh.

And now, back to the flamingos, the five million, and the frying pan. The end is near. I'm thinking Wednesday, Thursday at the latest. Get the champagne ready. I'm going home and Agnes really is almost done.

[Note: Bob's birthday was Saturday. I did not forget.]