The Wrap Up

1. First, I am one chapter away from being DONE with the first draft of book two as I write this. Part of me feels like this has taken FOREVER…and the other part of me keeps pointing out that it’s been less than 3 months since I started writing it. It took me a year the first draft of Intangible, so you’d think I’d be all “I’m the fastest writer EVER” with this book. Not so much. I had (what I realize now were) ridiculously unrealistic high hopes that I’d be able to write it in a month. (Pardon me while I laugh at myself for a moment.) Obviously I forgot to factor LIFE into my initial delusional writing schedule.

2. Of course, this doesn’t mean that I’m anywhere near ready to publish this book. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Um, no. This baby needs WORK. I’m going to spend the next few months editing and revising it until it’s all shiny. Honestly, this is my FAVORITE part of writing—the revising and polishing that fills out the story, tightens up the writing so every word is the exact right word, and smooths out the whole. I totally geek out as I improve my book draft by draft. It’s true. And then I’m going to send it out to my beta readers so they can point out all the problems with it, too. Though that step can be a little rough on the ego, I’m actually really looking forward to getting to that point because beta readers rock like nothing else in this world. Their feedback is absolutely essential to producing a good book.

3. In totally un-book-related news, this week I also finished the yearly salsa-making. Last year I made 38 quarts, which wasn’t enough (there are 6 of us and we REALLY like salsa), so I’ve made 53 quarts this years. (Whew.) I’m officially tired of canning. I don’t know how people do it who can EVERYTHING. How do they not run out of canning energy? Because I totally have. I don’t think I would have made a very good pioneer woman.

4. Of course now I’m trying to decide if I have enough canning energy left to make ketchup. I’ve never made it before but I keep hearing how it is SO much better than store-bought. Plus there’s the added bonus of being able to control how much sugar is in it as well as what form that sugar is in (ie. regular sugar vs. high fructose corn syrup). Of course, if I make it we run the risk of getting completely spoiled by homemade ketchup and not EVER wanting to eat store-bought again. Which is what happened with salsa (hence the 53 quarts now gracing my shelves). Do I really want to condemn myself to yearly ketchup-making for the foreseeable future? I haven’t decided yet. (But if you have a favorite ketchup recipe, please do share!)

5. And finally, I got something in the mail this week that totally thrilled me. On Tuesday I mentioned this fabulous article I’d read by David Vinjamuri. He and I got into a really nice conversation on Twitter and he was generous enough to send me these:

I’m really excited to read his branding book after checking out the reviews of it. I have a feeling it’s going to be similar in style to The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell which I absolutely loved. Can’t wait to dig in! He also sent me his first novel, Operator, which will be coming out in the next week or so. I’ll be burying myself in that in the next few days and I’ll let you know about it.

That’s it for me! What’s been going on with you? Have a great weekend, everyone. :-)