“Lonesome Cove” is in my publisher’s tender care

 

And will soon be passed over to her editor, who’s hands are not so tender. But at least the manuscript is out of my hair. I spent most of the previous two days in a final round of editing and a bit of rewriting and expanding descriptions and dialogue to clear up a few issues in some parts.

Once again, I am exhausted and suffering from a male version of post-partum blues. Two years I carried that thing around with me. If I wasn’t actively writing in the MS I was sure as hell thinking about the next few scenes or researching or daydreaming (yes, damnit, daydreaming) about how the plot was coming along and where it had to go next.

Nine months? Give me a break. I wish my novels only took nine months to assemble. Of course, I don’t have pain in places where I don’t have places (being a guy and all), and I’m sure as hell not going to get up in the middle of the night and feed the manuscript or pat its little back until it burps or change its dirty book cover after it craps itself.

Have I mentioned to you that I am so very, very glad I am not a woman? I was present at the births of all four of my children and shared as equally as possible in their first ten years of so; I’ve changed any number of diapers and had my shoulders covered in baby puke (and other stuff). I’ve paid my guy dues a few times over.

But still, both the baby raising and the manuscript are over and done with. Until the kids come to visit and my publisher’s editor sends the MS back with her markups. Let’s hope they don’t get here on the same day.

In the meantime, I’ll be starting serious work on a new novel I am co-authoring with a gentleman who has very deep knowledge of organized crime, gangs and the DEA and CIA. It’s based on a true story  and should make a fast-paced and very interesting story. And it should be done and ready for the publisher in six months.

But I am becoming very aggravated with Microsoft over their new web site hosting service Office 365. It is a muddle, and none of the tech support guys have a clue about how to straighten things out for the thousands of small and middling businesses struggling to move their web sites over to the new platform. And little old me is right in there with them.

Poor, poor, pitiful me.

But I am a writer, and I’ve got a blog…