I’m less happy with my content. It’s too sappy and the obstacles faced by the characters are being resolved too easily. But that’s something to worry about next month, if I worry about it at all. I may just chalk this novel up to experience and not try to do anything with it.

My plot has moved too quickly. There are a couple of things that have willed themselves to happen that I was planning on saving for the end of the novel. So I have to find new goals for my characters to reach, or ways to put their recent achievements back into peril.

I’m not sure what happened tonight — a cross between things I was watching on TV, being stuck at a plot point, grocery shopping, laundry, and just general laziness. But those are excuses.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that Turner Classic Movies was airing a documentary about the lyricist Johnny Mercer. I meant to watch it but didn’t. Today, a Facebook friend of mine mentioned that today is the 100th anniversary of Mercer’s birth and noted that her mother, who was once a quite successful entertainment writer with access to a number of well-known celebrities, liked and admired Mercer. I wondered if TCM might be re-running the documentary today, and it turned out they were. I left a comment alerting my Facebook friend of this fact, but then I also ended up watching the documentary myself. It was excellent. I was only vaguely familiar with Mercer and was stunned to realize just how many classic songs he wrote and that he was the co-founder of Capitol Records.

Then, after last night’s disappointing finale to the “Prisoner” remake, I felt like re-watching the finale of the original series, which I have on DVD.

I resolve to do better tomorrow, even though I’ll have an evening school board meeting to contend with.