I’ve got four books on my desk in various stages of production and it’s about three too many. I can write one book while brainstorming another, but I struggle to write if I’m doing revisions on another, copy edits on a third and final page proofs for the fourth. But that’s exactly what’s happening and it’s all stacked up in front of me.
My email inbox brought the revision letter for Desert King, Captive Bride this morning. Thankfully I know how to tackle the changes and if life goes according to plan, they should be finished by Monday, which would allow me to quickly read through the print out for The Desert King’s Chosen Queen which is due Tuesday. And once that’s finished I could quickly, but carefully, read the final page proofs for Odd Mom Out which is due May 1st and then get back to writing Alpha Mom which is due…well, too soon.
I hear sometimes from people that they never see me, or hear from me, and that weeks go by without any contact but I think this is the writer’s life. I have close writer friends that live across town and I see them once or twice a year…when our deadlines permit. Sad, but true and we all laugh about it together. We shake our heads and in the end, we smile because it is an amazing thing we do, living by words, paying bills by writing books.
Yesterday I didn’t write though. Yesterday Elizabeth Boyle and I flew to Tri-Cities in eastern Washington to speak on romance and women’s fiction to the Washington Library Association.
I’d never been to that part of the state before and it reminded me so much of the place I grew up, although admittedly our rivers weren’t the Columbia and Snake, our rivers were more of a trickle and a creek.
The sky yesterday was so big and blue. No tall buildings. No traffic. No rush. It was peaceful and sleepy and best of all, I wasn’t at my desk and I didn’t have to write and I just sat in the passenger seat of the car as Elizabeth drove.
Before we spoke we visited a Barnes & Noble, a used bookstore, a Hastings bookstore, a Starbucks and a yarn store (for Elizabeth). While Elizabeth dashed into the yarn shop, I put my feet on the dash and read Lip Locked by Susanna Carr and soaked up the sun and my iced tea and the pleasure that comes from playing hookey from the office.
We all need to escape the routine sometimes. We need to break free and have a little field trip and escape the words and the phone and the emails and the internet. We need big sky and quiet roads and good friends.
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