In case you’re curious, I didn’t end up going to the east coast for work after all, so I’m not at the Martha Stewart taping right now. But, I might as well be on business travel for all the free time I don’t have, since I’m still trying to whip this rewrite into shape before starting a totally different writing job next week (announcement is forthcoming as to what that is!). Suffice it to say that there’s a point in every novel, where it starts to take shape, and the re-working and additional writing feels sort of like you’re on the downslope of the hill. I may be there now; I will know more tomorrow.
The only possible explanation for why a rewrite would take this long is that it’s intended to be the first book in a series, which means there are ALOT of things to put into place in the first one. Because you know, there are totally people who write to me on MySpace, and are like "You know that part, in Hollywood Car Wash, when she’s celebrating her birthday? Well, technically, not enough months have gone by, so it wouldn’t be her birthday yet, and….." etc. Fill in the blank. I’m just saying that readers pay more attention than I think they do, and probably in book # 5 in this new series, they’d be messaging me on MySpace, like "You know that part, in book one, where they were going somewhere in the car? Um, they’re not 16 yet, so that couldn’t happen." Like that. Or maybe they’d wait and leave it in the Amazon comments of the book.
Also, I seem to have taken a large amount of photos of hilarious food in the grocery store, when I was still in the "procrastination" phase of this book, and not on the "uh oh– people are waiting" phase. For instance, did you know that at Ralph’s in Brentwood, they have a locked case in the front where they keep vodka and baby formula? Yeah, they do. It looks like this:
Are these the two most stolen items at the grocery store, I wonder? Do they taste good when mixed together?
Last but not least, there is an ad about me and Hollywood Car Wash in the latest copies of Writer’s Digest AND "The Writer," neither of which I have been able to find on the newsstand. So– that’s cool! I’m supposed to be getting copies via Fedex soon, and will certainly scan and put those up here, for your enjoyment.