Just Thinking

The book Blackwork is finished in draft! We sent an electronic version of it to my editor in New York yesterday and today I will print a hard copy of it and we’ll send that on Boxing Day (December 26), easily making the December 31st deadline. Now my editor will read it, find its errors or soft spots and mark them, return the manuscript to me with her notes, and I will fix or correct or re-write those sections. The book should appear in the fall of next year.

This lengthy process sometimes makes it difficult for an author to answer a common question: How’s your new book doing? Do you mean the one currently in bookstores? Or the one I’m working on? In my case, there’s even a third: The one I’m just starting. Right now, I have Thai Die in bookstores, Blackwork on its way to my editor, and Buttons and Bones just coming to life.

But the answer is the same for all three: They’re doing just fine, thank you. I’m excited about all three, and have high hopes for their success.

Travel in aid of Thai Die is over for now, and I’m glad of that. We had some interesting times traveling in winter weather this December, and even had to make an emergency stop on our way home from Madison, Wisconsin, when I-90/94 turned suddenly to ice near Tomah. Fortunately, we were near the head of the line when it happened and got off in time to get a motel room. Not so lucky were the bus, car, and truck ahead of us that discovered the new condition of the road by sliding into the ditch. By next morning, things were much improved and we drove on home to Minneapolis without incident.

My next trip will be to Nashville in February. I’ll be at the TNNA (The National Needlepoint Association) Market – where needlework shopowners gather to look at and buy the newest patterns, fibers, and patterns. I wrote a book set in Nashville, Crewel Yule, but I’m sincerely hoping this event is not marred as the one in the book was. Murder can be fun, when it’s fiction. In real life, not so much.

Yesterday evening my husband’s family gathered for its annual Christmas get-together. Our apartment was the setting, and while it was crowded, everyone managed to find a place to sit down. The food was great, the conversation even better. We are all adults now, so gifts were tokens accompanying notices that contributions to various charities had been made in one another’s names. Very nice.

And on that note, I will wish all of you a merry Christmas