My Friend Janet

Looks like I’m not going to be an every day blogger, though I have good intentions. I think about things, but I’m not sure the world in general needs to know them. Most of what I have to say will eventually find its way into my fiction through the mouths of my characters.

But today I’m mourning the death of my friend Janet Edgar. A fellow writer for Steeple Hill Love Inspired, her first book will release posthumously in December of 2006. She died of ovarian cancer yesterday morning after having “beaten” it once, and then being struck again. It makes my heart hurt that she didn’t get to see her book in print. But she’s in heaven enjoying much greater privileges. I have to believe that.

Janet was a lovely woman who encouraged other writers—admiring those who’d already published, ecstatically wearing the thrill of a first sale, and cheering on those still struggling to reach that milestone. She had a beautiful engaging smile and a contagious joy in lovely clothes and shoes—which seems silly when you write it down, but that kind of simple pleasure is fun to watch. She always wanted to do things right, a work ethic that challenged me personally.

I will miss her so much.

Road Books

Boy I was feeling so sassy about having finished a difficult book. Then my new editor calls to fill me in on the editing process. I have to be grateful that the publisher will be so careful to strengthen my first book with them. But I forget how much time the revision and line-editing process can take. A four- to twenty-page revision letter?! Yow. No rest for the weary. I started researching and outlining for the book due July 15, so I won’t be caught flat-footed by the edits on two others.

The current Work In Progress is set about half in central Mexico. Sounded like a good idea while I was writing the proposal, but it’s like a, um, foreign country to me. This will be a “road” book, a structure I love as a reader. There’s a Susan Elizabeth Phillips book called First Lady that sticks in my mind. The events and locations are fun, but it’s the characters that give the story life. The classic Clark Gable/Claudette Colbert movie It Happened One Night was the real inspiration for my story. I could watch that movie a hundred times and laugh every time. Memorable characters.

Typing "The End"

I’m back after a small absence. The book is finished (at least until my editor gets hold of it) and on its way to Grand Rapids or Oregon or wherever it winds up. I have to tell you, it feels really strange.

The characters I’ve lived with for months have achieved their happily-ever-after (I hope that won’t spoil the book if you decide to read it—but come on, I write romance) and I don’t have to think about them anymore. Oddly, I find that I do think about them, though. I wonder if I’ve made them smart enough and funny enough and deep enough to entertain a reader for a few days. I guess we’ll find out about next March.

Now I have a space of a few days to concentrate on family things. My son graduates from high school in a couple of weeks. I’m doing a memory book for him, so I’ve been looking through photo albums, combing through boxes of things I’ve saved since he was in kindergarten, and having a motherly meltdown. How did that beautiful little blond Dennis-the-Menace turn into this big deep-voiced young adult? I’m seeing traces of his humor and his sentimentality (well-hidden of course) and his way of looking at the world slowly emerge in Sunday school drawings, funny poems done for his own amusement (and mine), and essays forced upon him by longsuffering teachers. I can hardly wait to see what shape he takes as he launches into college and adulthood.

I pray he stumbles in as satisfying a career as I have. Writing is a killer, but it's worth it.