Tales from the Salt Mine

Friday, January 27 -- I have two monster deadlines breathing down my neck, and I figure the best way to make me work is to confess to the world how I'm doing. Right now I'm in the midst of a novella that's part of a full-length novel written by Jennifer Crusie, Eileen Dreyer, and moi. It's tentatively entitled THE UNFORTUNATE MISS FORTUNES, and it's the story of three sisters coming to terms with their extraordinary talents (one can change her form, one can change things (that's my character, the alchemist) and one can move things), but none of them does these things terribly well. They also have issues with their love lives.
My character, the middle sister Lizzie, doesn't really like sex and is obsessed with figuring out how to turn things into gold , when who should appear but a dazzling creature named Elric.

He's dazzling, but I'm not sure where they're going next. It's the way of stories -- I'm about a third of the way through and I'm stuck. It's that wretched point when you've introduced your characters, set the scene, set up the main narrative question or quest, and now you have to kill time before the good stuff happens.

Of course the answer to that is to make good stuff happen immediately. The question is, what good stuff is that?