Your Patience Was Appreciated

Wow, I've been out of pocket far too long, folks. Sorry. I'm sorry not only because I haven't been writing my own blog posts, but because I haven't been as assiduous as I should have been about reading and commenting on all of yours. Sorry about that.

But the time I spent was well worth it from my viewpoint. Last week I was doing a great deal of overtime. At the same time, an opportunity to have a pitch for a book critiqued by an editor for a romance publisher turned into an opportunity to send that book to that publishing editor. Since it was still in early draft form, reworking (twice) the book took up most of the time I wasn't working (including some of the time I should have been sleeping). Fortunately (I think), this novel was one of the cleanest drafts of any book I've ever done, so, though I went through it twice, tightening language and clarifying information, the total # words didn't vary by even 50 words, so it stayed pretty tight. I was able to send it off as I'd hoped Friday morning. Since then, a friend who hadn't expected to enjoy it (she told me after the fact), read it and enjoyed it, caught up enough she could only find three errors. She was sorry to see it end. That's what I'm looking for.

So, why didn't I catch up this past weekend? Well because enforced sitting (due to tendonitis/tendinosis of my Achilles tendon) and an urge to make some inroads in the current novel I'm working on pushed me to make an attempt to "finish" it using the three day weekend and an additional vacation day (total four days off). Since I was an estimated 32500 words short of my expected goal, that didn't happen. However, I did manage to work through more than 20K words during that period of time, despite a toddler who sees me with a keyboard in my lap as an invitation to displace it with her own darling person. And maybe take a nap.

I'm really working my ensemble cast in this one (Tentatively titled "Cat's Paw"), with far more plot threads than I've ever done before. What fun! And, hey, a little science is even sneaking in!

So, though some of you might have felt neglected, I hope you will comfort yourselves that my time was well-spent. And, if I didn't get the draft completed, it isn't much longer now. So thanks for your patience.