Bradjolina filming Cleopatra here

Here are Brad and Angelina and film crew in Aswan, preparing for the new Cleopatra movie. (They visited Luxor this spring as well.)

So glad they're filming in Egypt. We need tourists here, and Hollywood dollars!

With regard to yesterday's post: A friend pointed out to me that, for the average Egyptian, 43.50 Egyptian pounds is roughly equivalent to US $43.50! (After all, the minimum wage here is under $200 per month.)

I hope I'm not turning into an annoying foreigner! It's pretty clueless to convert prices back and forth between currencies. In my defense, I do have to watch my dollars. I have a backburner novel set in Tuscany. It's on the backburner because it needs a ton of research, and because I can't afford to live in Tuscany for even a few months!

I was amazed at how my grocery bill plummeted when I shopped like an Egyptian. My typical grocery bill is two or three  times what I spent yesterday, because I buy some of the more expensive items.

Do you think I should take down yesterday's blog post--and this addendum?

Happy 2012!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone!

Here's a photo for you from my recent cruise to Dendera. May you have smooth sailing through 2012!

A quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, to start your year off right:
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

dendera cruise, a photo by ibischild on Flickr.
(I hit the wrong button, & the caption was displaced. Not a techhie!) Click on the picture to see the photo in full-sized splendor at Flickr. With my description, full of local color.


Oh, and happy New Year to me! I finished first revision!


My new year's resolution for the blog: To post more Egypt photos! We'll try, anyway.

Crisis: Gateway of Opportunity

Gateway at Dendera temple (photo by author)

Remember Victorian novels? There's the severe fever, and then the terrible midnight moment when the doctor says, "This is the crisis." And you know that the outcome of this moment will be life or death.

I'm in a crisis! Because my book revision has reached the crisis (or climax). The terrible confrontation, the moment of truth and shame. Where my hero protagonist acts despicably.

Precisely, my challenge is writing the unwinding or unraveling after the crisis. The denouement, we called this, in English class.

For my character, this unraveling could lead to madness or death—already his constant fears. Will the outcome be negative or positive? [Clue: title of this blog post!]

My protagonist represses his feelings, but now he's up against a wall. Under pressure, he must express some interior activity. But how much, and where?

Then there's the sequence and number of  confrontations/conversations after the crisis point. I need to delineate damaged relationships and their slow healing (to the extent that they do heal). As I reread my draft, I realize that the relationships heal  too quickly and effortlessly.

I've started a blank page for reworking this material. I'll throw up a skeleton of events, and then see which thoughts and feelings weave themselves into this skeleton as a kind of connective tissue, and which are unnecessary or uncharacteristic or should remain unexpressed.

The first 8500 words of revision of part 3 went pretty smoothly. And now—aargh! But if I nail this section, it's my opportunity to make the book shine!

Photo--Traditional Musicians

Putting up a picture for a change!

Here are some traditional musicians in front of ancient Luxor temple. (The temple view somewhat obscured by a modern performance stage.)
The temple is over 3000 years old.