Back to Work, Or, Oh My God I’ve Less Than Two Months to Finish This Book!

Well, it’s a new year, and I’m back at work after more than three weeks off. I haven’t been anywhere. But sometime in early December, when my youngest was home from college and I realized my tree wasn’t up, my house wasn’t decorated, and I hadn’t bought any Christmas presents, I decided I had two choices: I could either keep trying to write my book and end up resenting Christmas and making my family miserable, or I could take off my writer’s cap, put away my manuscript, and just enjoy the holidays.

Christmas and my family won.

I had a great time, and I hope my family did, too. Last Friday I put my youngest on a flight to Italy. I spent the weekend taking down the tree and cleaning up my house and office (I even filed). Then, early Monday morning, I opened up my eyes and went, Eek. I have less than two months to finish What Remains of Heaven!

I’ve spent the last two days rereading what I’ve already written and going over my notes for what lies ahead. It’s going to be close, getting this thing in on time. But with a few trips up to the lake and no more disasters, I think I can make it.

And I had a great holiday. Happy New Year’s, everyone!

As the Thunder Rumbles

I'm having a hard time settling down to write on this dreary, rainy New Orleans Monday morning. Part of it is the distractions of the past few days--painting my mother's bedroom last Thursday and Friday, then going up to the lake over the weekend to work on that house (what kind of masochists try to renovate three houses at the same time?). But I suspect most of the blame lies with the thunder rumbling in the distance, the heavy gray cloud cover pressing down on me, the echoes of horror and despair that continue to whisper in my memory no matter how much I try to ignore them. The worst of our hurricane season is, thankfully, past. I know this is just a little squall. But I can't help it. I once loved the power of storms. Now, I hate storms.

Press hates them, too. Press is our half-feral foundling cat. He'll lay at my feet for hours, purring. But reach for him and he's gone. Which is why Press was left in our house--with lots of food and water--when we evacuated with the other cats for Katrina. We battled our way down to rescue him exactly one week after the hurricane hit. He was scared, but okay; we have a two-story house and we "only" got one foot of water. But to this day, at the first clap of thunder, Press leaps up off the floor onto the nearest sofa or chair. Which sort of answers our question about where exactly in the house he was when the water came sluicing in!