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The holiday has passed but it was really memorable for me. I had my first signing in my hometown and it went extremely well. I had a great article in the Ely Echo the week prior and the local shopper had a great ad for Piragis Northwoods Outfitters about my appearance in their bookstore. I pretty much hoped for the best. Honestly, if I sold 10 books, I would have thought that was pretty good. By the end of the weekend, I had 42 gone. Lisa’s Second-Floor Bookstore in Ely bought the remaining stock I had. It was a lot of fun to see old family friends and classmates that evening. They expressed a lot of surprise and pride over my accomplishment. Aw shucks. One of the highlights was seeing Tom Walton. He was my 6^th grade creative writing teacher and it was through his class that I first was published in McCall’s Magazine. He bought a copy of Awakening and I hope he likes it. At 80 years old, I doubt I’d shock him but I hope he likes the plot! Over the weekend, I ran into other people I knew and they were making a B-line to Lisa’s to get their copies. My husband and children bought me a lovely bouquet of flowers for my table and my sister in-law, Elaine, made me a wreath to give away. She and my husband hovered around all evening making sure things went swell. It was swell….

I am getting used to my new job as a copywriter and editor for a local direct marketing firm. I’m having a lot of fun learning a new market and getting to know new people. It’s only part time so it’s easier to work on other things and oh yeah, see my family! I’ve been really overwhelmed with e-mail lately and writing obligations that keep dragging me away from working on my books. I imagine the holiday season isn’t going to help matters but I find myself exhausted by dinnertime and not having the right focus to sit down and edit Love Bites.

One of my beta readers, Leslie, has raised some critical questions I need to consider in Love Bites. We’ve been yammering via e-mail - she lives in Chicago and we’ve never met - about a few tricky spots in the book I need to clear up. I have edited portions of the book several times already but there are a couple of issues that are very rough.

And then there are the character motivation issues. I’ve got Wade, my vamp, thinking, acting, and feeling in a particular direction however Leslie doesn’t see him quite the same way. Not my fault she didn’t create Wade! LOL There aren’t huge differences, but enough to maybe confuse a reader who doesn’t have a direct line to the author, if you get my drift. My ending came off totally cool but also not the way I planned. A cast of characters arrives for the final pages and now I have to go backwards in the story and lay their groundwork. Ah geez. My doctor pal, James, sent me 13 pages of edits on the medical scenes. Thank goodness for James. He has a good sense of humor and he’s very thorough. I’m pretty sure he wishes his dad never laid eyes on me - I used to work for his pop - but we’ve had a mutually-beneficial relationship over the years…I write his stuff, he edits mine for medical accuracy.

I guess the long and short of it, is I have some serious head scratching to do on Love Bites before it might be ready for prime time. It is a very interesting book, no doubt. I just have to pull it all together.When I sit down and look at the entire piece and start to map out the issues and how they connect or are unresolved, I find myself staring at a lot of work in terms of rewrites or a sequel. Leslie is chanting, “sequel, sequel” but I’m not sure about that.

I’ve been tearing out what’s left of my hair on my children’s books. I still haven’t got a release date on First Spring, but I picked out illustrators. Now we’ll see which one “feels” the book and wants to tackle it. I have picked a URL and as soon as the holidays are over I’m going to begin working on my books under the name Margaret Rose. I met a woman last weekend and we might collaborate on a piece. She’s a fabulous artist and I hadn’t planned to write another book but sometimes stuff happens. I doubt I’ll have time to bake Christmas cookies and judging from my pie-eating efforts last week, that’s a good thing.

Allaire has been bugging me to let her blog. She’ll be up next week. I PROMISE. She wants to talk about what it’s like to have her um “private” life plastered in the pages of a novel. Seriously, people actually ask me if the love scenes in my books are based on my personal life. I wish. ROFLMYBO  But where does a writer get his or her inspiration for those intense scenes? Allaire will share that with you and I’ll make sure she keeps it clean!

Have a great week.

Until the next time.

The Churchlady