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Happy Purim, which was early last week. Happy St. Patrick’s Day which was late last week. Happy Spring Equinox which was Monday. What have I been doing while all of you were celebrating holidays? The copy edited manuscript of DANSE MACABRE came in just before we went on tour. No way to take a twelve pound book on an airplane. Editing at copy edit stage is difficult traveling anyway, but the size of the book just lended itself to loosing pieces. That would have been bad. Our new copy editor, who is amazing, would probably have cried if we’d misplaced all her careful work. Jon looked at the copy edits first. I’ve found that a fresh pair of eyes is very useful at this stage. Then, after he was done, my turn. But do you guys remember what else I’m trying to do? Finish the next Merry book, MISTRAL’S KISS. I was convinced that if I went back over an Anita book that Merry’s voice and adventure would be distant in my mind, and I’d have trouble getting back into it. It’s happened before, though never with a book this close to completion. I mean, Merry and the gang are in the final scenes. The big battle, the last few confrontations, and magic, magic, everywhere. Usually, when I’m this close to the end a book writes very fast, but I wrote here on the blog earlier about how reluctant Merry and I had both become about finishing this book. It had slowed to a crawl. Then I had a talk with my editor at Penguin/Putnam, Susan. She kindly pointed out that they really needed DANSE back soon.
We discussed how soon, and then she offered to move the book later in the year. Don’t scream people, I refused. Because there is no room to move nuthin’ this year. The good news is that I have four books coming this year, five if you count the new hard back of THE KILLING DANCE with the new afterward. The bad news is that I’ve got four books coming this year, five if you count the new hard back of THE KILLING DANCE with the new afterward. Why is it both bad and good? Because writing a book is only part of the job. You got to edit the puppies, too. You’ve got to get two different publishers to agree on when different books are coming out. Now that I’m a bestseller, and especially a number one New York Times bestseller, there is a lot more marketing and scheduling, not just among my own books, but juggling with other books at their houses and other houses. Trust me, a lot of thought goes into when to release a book that has bestselling potential. Nothing in the schedule can move, not an inch. It took too much maneuvering to get everything where it is now. So I had to drop everything and work on DANSE MACABRE copy edits.
We got them off Tuesday, so they should be overnighted safely to my publisher by now. But now that leaves me back to MISTRAL’S KISS. I really expected the book to be like cold ashes in my imagination, but it wasn’t. The scene lives for me. In fact, the break seems to have renewed my courage and Merry’s. We can do this. We can. I hope I have the book finished before I have to drop everything and work on the copy edits for STRANGE CANDY, my short story collection. Since it’s sitting on the pile of things to be done, I’m probably running out of time. My editor will get back to me today about when the last possible date will be to send it back to them.
Sunday, finally, I got to see MICAH in the New York Times at number one on the paperback list. I’d seen it online, but I’m an old fashioned kind of girl. I needed to see it in print. Apparently, you hit online before you hit in print. so there’s this delay, and it’s both exciting and agonizing. Print is real to me, computer screen, not so real. I know, I know, I’m a Luddite. It took me a week to finally relax and enjoy being number one on the Times List, and all the other lists. A week of struggling with my own inner demons before I could have fun with it. Some very good friends came up this weekend, Shawn and Kathy. We’d been trying to get them back up for about a year. So I actually took the weekend off, and let myself finally celebrate all the good news. Schedules, and babysitters are hard to match so no idea when Shawn and Kathy will get back down here. I hope soon. We wanted a grown-up weekend. It was Shawn’s birthday, so we took him out to one of our favorite restaurants. Kathy, his lovely wife, teaches and they have a young son, so a child free weekend was a truly rare occasion for her. A nice restaurant, good food, and very good company.
Shawn and I have known each other for almost twenty years. We were married into the same family, and divorced from our respective spouses who happened to be brother and sister. A very interesting bonding experience that. Now we are both remarried. I think they’ll hit seven years at the end of the month. Jon and I will celebrate five married, six as a couple this year, ourselves. Strangely, Jon and Kathy look eerily alike. Almost more alike than our first spouses, who were brother and sister for real. Funny that.