I would LIKE to say that I spent the two weeks since I’ve done this Substack relaxing. Floating in a pool, say, with an umbrella drink balanced on my stomach. But really I have been revising. It’s actually more like rewriting. Three hundred or so pages that I keep going over, and over. Adding a scene here. Tweaking the language there. When I reach the last page, I pause just long enough to take a breath and then go back to the start. I was eating way too much sugar so I had to quit sugar. Then I was mainlining microwave popcorn and so stopped that as well. Now it’s just me, coffee, and this book. It stays with me even when I am asleep: the other night I dreamed I was done. Then I woke up. NOPE. Not yet. But man, it will be so worth it when I am. Hopefully I will have news to share with you about it sometime this month.
I have actually left the house a few times. One was last Saturday, when I spoke to a convention crowd at a luncheon. It was like coming up out of a bomb shelter into the light: other people! Bright colors! More coffee! I had to give a speech and was a little worried, as I sat blinking the Marriott parking lot, that I had been in my revision cave too long to Interact With People. But luckily, after all these years, giving a talk on writing and telling your story is like riding a bike. Bit wobbly maybe at first, but then it all comes back. (Also, I was given a Starbucks gift card and a hummingbird feeder, both of which I am VERY much enjoying. Often at the same time. I buzz along with the birds. Thank you, Jessica!)
One thing that hasn’t taken much of a hit is my reading. Usually at this point in a revision I can’t handle novels, as my brain is too filled with my own. Instead, I am savoring even more the time I have to enjoy the result of someone else’s hard work. I was leaving the library this week and bumped into an old friend and we immediately began to talk books. He texted me the ones he’s read so far in 2025, which got me looking at my own. I am on number 42 for the year. I think if I had not read so much I would be even more stressed. I know I’ve mentioned a lot of titles over the weeks since January. Here’s the full list:
In TV, I’m loving Seth Rogan’s The Studio. (He is a longtime favorite, ever since Freaks and Geeks, and if you need a good audio listen, I can’t recommend Yearbook enough.) The Studio is a unique mix of fast paced and cringey, which you wouldn’t expect to be so entertaining. We’re also watching Hacks, which just started a new season and is so good. I’ve had to nudge my husband to watch the new season of Black Mirror—unsettling, amazing, as always—and we’re both now hooked on Severance, which we somehow missed. I love finding a show with both good reviews AND more than one season. Score!
It’s now May (somehow?) and I’m writing this from the table in my backyard. It’s cool, for now, a breeze blowing. The hummingbirds are buzzing and clacking. We’ve had so much going on here, big highs and some stomach-scraping lows, plus everything in between. The book I’m working on is about many things—too many, one might say, and that “one” is me, currently—but a big theme is taking the good while you have it. Seizing a life, not letting it pass by. I’m realizing that this isn’t just about those Big Life Moments you know you’ll remember as much as the everyday little things. Like coffee. Birds. My husband cracking me up when we are both so tired and stressed. Each is a puzzle piece, making up days, years. The end image is still coming into view. In time. Everything in time.
Have a good weekend, everyone!
Potential impending book news is absolutely the pick-me-up I needed today. More than anything, I'm hoping for a tour, even a little one, so that I can finally meet you!
Hi! So nice to see the Friday Five again! Didn't really expect you to return so soon. Clearly you have been busy! The new book sounds awesome--- fingers crossed that you will have good news before long. And your reading list is IMPRESSIVE. Seriously! Some great titles there, not to mention the sheer numbers. Finally, you are so right. The little things are everything. Birds and coffee and laughter, an amazing trifecta. Thank you for sharing this.