The odd things that excite us

I sent my revisions back to my editor. This is a load off my chest–literally, since I’ve been laying on my bed for days underneath my laptop and half a manuscript. In this wave of revisions I changed the main character’s home from Avondale, Arizona to Henderson, Nevada which meant that along with everything else, I had to change the roads they travel and the entire time line. Imagine me yelling questions for my husband to Google:

“Do they have a Toys R Us in Henderson? Hurray! One more thing I don’t have to change. Where is the nearest Cancer Hospital? Please, please, please let them have one in Vegas. Yes–I love you, Vegas. Can you get an aerial view of I-15 out of Barstow–do they have bushes growing in the median? They do? Yessss!”

Ah the writer’s life and the odd things that excite us.

I’ve read the manuscript probably seven or eight times now. I used to cry in three places–two of which I’m sure nobody else will cry in. (I will tell you where those places are after the book comes out.) The first two I no longer cry in, but the third . . . still, still, after all of the rereads, I still cry there. And it is still weird for me to try and carry on a normal conversation with my kids, “Yes, you can *sniff* have a cookie” as I’m crying over this scene.

On the plus side even after all these reads, I still love the trailer scene. You will know what I’m talking about when the book comes out–which as it turns out will not be until spring 2009. Doesn’t that sound like forever away? They don’t even have calendars for 2009 yet. Some people who read my book, may not have been born yet. (Okay, I’m just kidding about that–but that’s how it feels.)

Oh well, more time for me to write all of those other things which I never get around to because I’m too busy working on deadlines. And maybe I will even get to finish painting my kitchen. There’s another thought that would probably only excite a writer.