All right, all ready!

Just when I get a new chapter done on my book, half the critique group comes down with the flu and we cancel for this round. Rats! Now I have to wait until Nov. 4 (we meet twice a month). I guess that gives me time to re-write the chapter (again, and maybe a fourth time). I know we're supposed to (according to all the "experts" at writers conferences) write the whole stinking book first, then go back and rework it--and I will, sort of--but first, I have to reread the section leading into where I want to start, so I can get the rhythm. And that makes me want to reword stuff here and there, drop a sentence, improve a description...I can't help myself.

I did have some minor satisfaction this week, besides the writing. My 12-year-old daughter asked me something like "do you have any presidential autographs?" (only the Lord knows why) so I dug out a photo from my news days. I was standing with Gerald Ford, and the photo was signed "best wishes" to me. The usual photo op that news people get with any president, especially one campaigning, as Ford was at that moment. My kiddo was muy impressed. She wanted to borrow the photo to show her friends, but I suggested it was really not for handing around the neighborhood, and besides, nobody would really give a rip. It's not like it was REAGAN, for pete's sake!

Well, back to the novel. At this rate, it may actually be done in time to pay for a couple of her college textbooks.