Almost all of yesterday…

Almost all of yesterday we were out, working in a cafe/bookstore. Very productive -- first I revised "Sins of the Father", and am now happy with it, thought Dan still hasn't told me why he wants me to change the name, and if he doesn't tell me very soon, it will be officially too late. Then I read Jennifer Cruisie's Welcome to Temptation, much fun. Then I made Jed read "Wood and Flesh" and talk to me about it, which was most helpful, and I reviewed the crit suggestions I had on it, and then I did most of a very good rewrite, I think. Still about a third to a half of the story left to fix, and it's the hardest part to get right, but what's done is pretty much perfect, exactly what I wanted, so I'm hoping that I can re-read that, get into the right head, and nail the rest of it today. Fingers crossed.

So, a working afternoon, then dinner with Pam and Arthur and the baby. It's all good. The next three days I'll be doing a writing retreat that Susan Lee organized, which should be fun. I'm hoping I can finish the bulk of the collection revisions today, so that I can spend a good chunk of that time diving into the new book.

I've been feeling a fair bit of anxiety about the collection this week -- about getting it right, about critical reception, that kind of thing. Kevin started reading this final draft Tuesday, and when he called me up with comments, I felt my heart start thumping, terrified that he wouldn't like it. He's read bits and pieces of it over the years, of course, but never the whole thing in one go. His opinion matters too much to me. He gave me some small crits, and at the end of that story, said that he'd liked it a lot. Whew! I then chided him for not saying that at the beginning of his response. He'll try to keep that in mind for the future. :-)

Anyway, I'm hoping that starting the new book will help to keep me from obsessing about the collection, which will very shortly be at a point where I can't change anything. It's a plan, anyway. Not sure if it's a good plan, but any plan is better than nothing...