Shattered. Broken. Fixed.

I've dropped my iPhone about a hundred times and nothing bad has happened. I've gotten that clutchy feeling in my heart. I've panicked a little. Picked up my phone and nothing had happened.

Yesterday I dropped my phone and the screen shattered. The clutchy feeling in my heart turned to full on panic because I do everything on my phone - I talk, I text, I check social networks and email. I write, I dictate, I make notes. It was on this phone that my agent called to tell me I sold to Harlequin SuperRomance.

I called my provider and learned I wasn't up for a new or free phone and that a replacement would be over $500. Ouch. But then the worker told me to try Interstate Batteries, next door to their shop. Because Interstate can sometimes replace shattered screens - and a lot cheaper than $500. I called, they had one screen left for my phone and it would be $100. Still an ouch, but an easier ouch to deal with than $500. Plus, I'd be able to use my phone.

Hopped in my car, drove over and thirty minutes later my phone was as good as new. All my pictures - in tact. My social networks and email - still working. My notes on the WIP - there. The little section I dictated - ready to be transferred into the WIP.

Panic, gone. Clutchy feeling, gone.

The guy who fixed my phone tells me they replace an average of 10 screens a week because, 'these things are fragile. You can drop one a million times but the one time it hits just right on a corner, it's going to break.'

Kind of like our characters - I'd just had an ah-ha moment about my hero and his internal conflict. The thing that broke him. He'd been hit at least 10 different times and ways before, but then one hit came...and it hit him in just the right way and his world shattered. In a lot of ways he shattered. And he thinks he's replaced his screen (so to speak) and he thinks he's just normal now. But he's still broken.

Fixing him won't be as easy as fixing my screen...but it's going to be just as satisfying. I just know it.