Sorry it’s been so long. I’ve been at Disney World, which is at one and the same time the greatest and worst place on earth! There’s so much I loved and so much I could have done without… Maybe I’ll go into that at another time. For now:

1. Sent off my latest round of edits/rewrites to my editor. Have I mentioned how talented she is? She’s pulled so much more out of my manuscript than I ever thought was there.

2. I’m reading right now. I don’t read fiction when I’m writing for fear the other author’s style will sneak into mine. At the moment I’m reading Nicholas Sparks’ The Last Song. More about this later. For now I’ll just say that I think my career as a writer sometimes interferes with my enjoyment as a reader. For instance, The Last Song fascinates me because of the way it came into being. The whole time I’m reading it, I’m wondering about how Mr. Sparks wrote the movie script before he wrote the book. Okay, how does that work? Will the parts I love in the book be in the movie? How will they translate to a visual format? I guess I’ll have to see the movie to find out, and I can’t wait!

3. I’ve finally got a handle on the characters in my latest effort, and now I’m working on the structure. Did I mention that I wrote 30,000 words before I had a real idea about the structure? Not a good idea.

4. Finally, I just want to send out a salute to all the writers (and there are many of them out there) who can make me stop in the middle of reading their work and say, “How the HELL did they write that?” I could name a few here, many of whom I consider friends — and some of whom you’ve never heard of and won’t find in a Google search — but I won’t because I’d no doubt leave somebody out. But you know who you are.

5. Now it’s time to put on my editor’s hat. I’m working on Dark Recesses stuff for the rest of the weekend, catching up and getting up to speed, to mix metaphors in (I hope) an effective way. Look for a new .pdf from us soon!