Monster's Ink

"You live with her, Ms. Sorenson," said Terrence, with his regular laser-beam intensity
reasserting itself. "If you were Isabelle, where would you keep your check duplicates?"

"You know...I wouldn't put it past her to keep some in her underwear drawer, but don't
bet the ranch on it."

Terrence opened the uppermost drawer of Isabelle's dresser and started tossing flimsy
bits of lace over his shoulder until he brought something small and papery out of the mess.

"I can't believe I got that right!" said Pauline.

--Pauline Sorenson and Terrence Martin, User Assembly is Required. Terrence is Isabelle's dad, in case you're wondering.

...that makes me want to curl up in a ball and put myself in a coma for a few decades.

I've finished writing the rough draft of the synopsis for Novel 2, which is women's fiction, 48k words. It's really quite a straightforward story, right? It comes out to about 97 pages in Word or equivalent software. Which means that an appropriately paced synopsis ought to be, what, 2 pages?

Even cutting out the theme, tone and background parts? This one's 6 pages.

Which means I need to hack it down to approximately 1/3 its size. And this time, I actually have an agent who wants to see a query for this! But it's already been over 2 weeks since she asked to see it, and she might not remember it if I keep twiddling my thumbs.

Now, if you'll excuse me while I beat the damn thing into submission (no pun intended)...