Remember the story of the maid who counted her chickens before they hatched? Quick summary: a milkmaid milks a cow, puts the pail on her head to take to market, thinks on the way that she’ll buy some eggs to hatch, thinks how many might be chickens and how many roosters, gets caught up in her future good fortune when she can sell eggs AND milk once the chickens start to lay, imagines the hat she’ll buy and how she’ll toss her head to impress a rival. Oops. She tossed her head in real life and spilled the pail of milk. Writing is at least as complicated as the milkmaid’s plot. We have to write, revise, revise, revise, query, contract, revise, revise, etc. But…