Books, Books, Books

I came home Sunday evening from the 80th birthday party weekend for the fella's dad and looked at the letter included in the second panel of Rita contest books I agreed to read...and discovered that I had until Wednesday (IOW, today) to read them all. Seven of them. By today.

Fortunately, none of them were massive tomes, so I was able to get through them fairly quickly. But I have been reading madly since Sunday evening. I read two Sunday night, two on Monday, one yesterday, and the last two today. And yes, I read them with full comprehension and can tell you what each of them was about. But I'm not going to because they are contest entries, and it's a secret.

I think I'm kind of taking this week off from the writing, which is risky, because I really want to finish the book by the end of the month. So I'm typing it in instead, and doing my first edit/revision. I'd like to get 50-60 pages in by Friday. I'm heading to Waco fairly early on Friday, for the workshop I'm doing (finished it today) and the booksigning at Books-a-Million.

Oh yeah, I'm doing a book signing at Books-a-Million in Waco on Saturday beginning at 2 p.m. Hope it goes well. I've done absolutely no PR for it, but one of the other ladies participating has done quite a bit. So...

I'm ready to be home for a while. We've been gone the last two weekends, and the fella's been gone for at least a couple of nights during the week for the past month.

I got an envelope from the agent with suggestings & critique about the last couple of things I've sent her, and now I'm going through the thinking part of my response. It takes me a while to think about what people suggest/say about my writing, whether it's a critique partner, an agent, an editor, or whoever. Most of the time, what they ask about is something I'm aware of, and thought I had in there, but it's obviously not clear, or not clear enough. So now I have to figure out how to make it clear.

And I have discovered that I really don't like a lot of description in the books I read (and thus in the books I write). Sometimes I want to know about the clothes, but not every single stinkin' time, and not in any great massive detail. Nor do I want to know about the furniture or the architecture, in great detail, which is why it's hard for me to put in enough to suit other people. That happy medium is hard to find.

Anyway, I'm here. I'm heading off again. (The workshop is on The Plotter/Pantser Hybrid, or, Whatever Works for You is Right.) And I'll be back again on Sunday, hopefully without a big stack of books I have to read in a hurry. (Though I still have one to read for a different contest, but I have till April on that one...which is good, because it is a massive tome...)