Book Brain

The deadline for getting my fifth Home Crafting Mystery to the publisher is approaching. I'm at that stage of the game where I'm editing and proofing, looking for continuity mistakes, and getting feedback from other people.

The whole book is in my head. It pushes a lot of other stuff out.

Yesterday I momentarily blanked on my cat's name. The coffee mysteriously appeared in the vegetable drawer instead of the cupboard. My ability to construct a meal is rudimentary, and we're eating a lot of leftovers out of the freezer. I am a less than scintillating conversationalist.

The book in my head opens at night, and the characters escape into my dreams. They do things they wouldn't normally do. I wake up in the morning and briefly wonder if I really wrote it that way. Or if I should have.

Sometimes I lug the book around with great fondness, like a sweet-smelling baby. I don't want to let it go. Other times throwing it out altogether seems not only like a good idea, but utterly necessary.

At the same time, I'm working on promotional activities for Something Borrowed, Something Bleu which will release on July 1. (You can preorder it now, though.) See, I wasn't kidding about the promotion. But there's no room for the plot of that book in my brain right now. There will be by the time I'm actually out there talking about it, though.

I hope.