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Archive for July, 2011

Home Again, Home Again!

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Sorry to have disappeared. I went to Washington, DC for 9 days for a workshop on using the records of the National Archives.

It was an amazing experience. To actually hold in my hand a document that my ggg-grandfather wrote on in 1845 was pretty astonishing. And to finally discover the ‘missing link’ of indirect evidence that proved the identity of his father was icing on the cake.

I would have been delighted with the experience even without that, but having the great good fortune to discover it was the sort of thing that gives people like me goosebumps.

I also got to spend the week (when I wasn’t communing with dead relatives and other deceased folks) with my daughter, my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter. It was a blast.

It was Glowkid’s 11th birthday – she was born while I was in DC in 2000 for the RWA conference. So getting to take her back this time was a real treat. And she was at a perfect age to enjoy it. Come to think of it, we were ALL at perfect ages to enjoy it.

They did the capital and all that that entails while I was in class, but in the evenings we hung out and went to some great restaurants.

We also did a tour of the DC monuments by moonlight and it was a wonderful experience. I’d done a hop on / hop off bus tour during the daytime when I was there in 2000. But I think this was better.

Also enjoyed meeting a fantastic bunch of fellow students and colleagues. They were such a smart, well-educated, insightful bunch that it was like playing mental tennis with Rafael Nadal all week. Really made me raise my game.

And now I’m home – doing laundry, walking dogs, thinking about the new book. I sent it revisions for Yiannis’s book while I was in DC. I haven’t heard that they are coming back for more, and I was told we had a ‘tight turn-around’ for copy-editing, so maybe they are already gone. Dunno.

I’ve started April Kihlstrom’s Book in a Week for the second time because the first time was such a success. I’m hoping this one will jumpstart the new story which is about . . . God only knows.

The hero who last week thought his name was Leo is now telling me his name is Grayson. It told him they are NOTHING alike. He said, “Well, duh.” Or words to that effect.

It’s a Christmas book. I haven’t done one of those in several years. I’m looking forward to it. Just hope he – or his heroine – tells me what the story is about!

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Layering

Friday, July 1st, 2011

I’m doing revisions, as I said the other day. And I recall one thing my editor said when we discussed them was, “I didn’t think Yiannis had had a relationship with Cat when I read his part of the first chapter.”

And I said, “He didn’t think so, either!”

Which was pretty much true when I wrote it. Things were just beginning to come together and neither he nor I had a clue about the backstory at that point. Well, we had a few clues, but not much more. And certainly we didn’t know that.

It was when Cat started talking that I realized all this emotion had to come from something more than, ‘He bought my grandmother’s house.’

And, indeed it did.

But in the hurry to get it sent in, I didn’t go back and layer in the necessary recollections on Yiannis’s part. Getting to do so now is actually fun. I know him so much better now. I can hear his voice whereas in the beginning I was just getting to know him.

These are fun revisions because they don’t change the book; they deepen it. They layer in more feelings, more emotions, more nuance. But the emotional arc itself doesn’t change.

I am hoping to get them finished this week. But I’m having a visitor as of tomorrow. As RWA is ending, my dear friend and middle-of-the-night-because-it’s-afternoon-in-Australia support, Anne Gracie, is coming to visit for a few days!