is the current publishing date for Four Winds… I heard today for sure and contacted my editor to see if she felt we’d make it by then and she reassured me we were on track. I have been fighting with the opening of Four Winds since the beginning. I workshopped it at writer’s group and implemented all their suggestions. I wrote and rewrote the first three pages until nearly every single word had been changed. When I got the notes from the editor on the first twenty-five pages, her first comment was about the opening. In her opinion, the story started for real on page 4!

Looking at it through her eyes, I spotted the problem immediately and spent today rewriting it again- except this time I sacrificed the first two days, rewrote page 3 as the new page one… and …. it worked. It’s back in her lap for her suggestions, but it is a much stronger opening than it was before. The real problem was me… I spent all my time trying to make something work that didn’t because I had this concept I wanted to use instead of scrapping it and trying something else. I was too close and had too much invested in those first two pages. Sometimes life is like that for me. I hammer away on a problem and jimmy together a solution, but in reality, I fixed the wrong problem. I fixed the problem I wanted solved instead of the deeper, real one causing the chaos. Too bad life doesn’t come with professional editors… oh wait… it does… they’re called friends!

May the problem you are trying to fix become a little easier because of the people in your life today!

We have a new granddaughter. She is 5 days old and beautiful. She is also the catalyst for the change we will be experiencing around here. She and her big sister are spending gobs and gobs of time bonding with Momma and Daddy for the next few weeks. I’m on call … just in case… but I’m not expecting to be needed. I may drive down to see them because I will miss them and want time with them, but the three year old is no longer coming here three days a week like she has for the last year. We knew from the beginning that it was a temporary thing and I think because of that I tried to cram so much into our days together- lots of adventures and learning- but very little writing time. I tried to stay focused but mostly it was a year of editing and note taking.

It’s ok that things are changing. They are changing for the better.