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.