That’s what my life consists of right now. Book 5 in the Sisters in Sin series, Kindling the Darkness, is due to my editor
on Wednesday. I managed to finish the first draft on Christmas Eve, but since
40,000 words of it were written during NaNoWriMo, it’s requiring a LOT of work
to get it submission ready. My revision process involves reading through for
typos and errors and making comments on the big things that need fixing. Then I
take all of the comments and put them in a to-do list. This one had 41 to-dos,
ranging from “add more mentions of the weather and time of year” to “why are
there no guests at this B&B, ever?” to “what is the nature of the hell
beast and what is it actually doing in this town? Delete all of this and try to
make sense!”
Mentions of the weather I can fix pretty quickly. The
B&B is now a bookstore and café, because guests would only get in the way
(which is probably why I forgot to have any). But the nature of the evil that’s
hunting my heroine and being hunted by her? Probably should have figured that
out on page one. Sigh.
I’ve fixed all but five of these disasters (and added three,
because, sure, let’s change the damn bookstore again), but the big one is still
looming. I’ve worked out the beast’s nature, but the actions it’s taken are
still a problem. That’s okay. I have one last weekend and two day job workday
evenings left. I can do this.
But not if this cat doesn’t shut up. Have you ever had a
seventeen-year-old, half-deaf cat? This one is bored, clingy, and loud. And he
does not approve of writing novels.
Or blog posts. Or answering email. He pretty much only approves of being fed
and sitting on my lap while I watch television. (No reading Twitter while the
cat is sitting, please!)
Despite the feline disapproval, I had a good start on the
revisions this morning. But it was laundry day, and with only one pair of clean
underwear left, I could no longer put it off. (I seriously envy anyone who
actually owns a washer and dryer. I’ve been going to Laundromats for 34 years
and I am really, really tired of it. When you reach your 50s, you get tired of
a lot of stupid things. Like this virtual doughnut of fat that’s collecting
around my middle. But I digress. Because doughnuts. Dammit. Why did I think of
doughnuts??)
So I’m back from the laundry, and I remembered another
deadline: writing this blog post. How does it always manage to surprise me each
and every single month? Well, lucky you, you got to read about how I ended up
writing about deadlines, laundry, and yowling cats.
I would like to say that my New Year’s resolution is to
write my blog posts in advance, but that would be an utter lie, so let’s just
pretend my resolution is not to eat any more doughnuts.
As a bonus, my favorite line from Kindling the Darkness:
“Well, actually, hell isn’t really that different. It’s just on another…” He
stopped and rolled his eyes. “Oh, for f***’s sake. I’m devilsplaining. Never
mind. Let’s eat, drink and be merry!”
