Writers write. Every day. Right now it’s Tuesday morning. So far today, I’ve written a new bio for an event I’m doing late in October. I’ve also spent more than an hour doing an on-line interview for the upcoming Beaumont book, The Taken Ones.

It’s suddenly occurring to folks that Beau has been around for more than forty years and that I’ve been writing for a VERY long time. As a consequence, it wasn’t your run-of-the-mill “What’s the book about?” interview. The questions came from a more historical perspective, and the answers weren’t exactly something I could cut and paste.

I’ve also answered a question from a fan who’s planning on visiting Cochise County later this year and wanted some pointers about what to see and do. That reply was short but fun.

The thing is, Tuesday mornings are usually when I get my rear in gear and write the blog, and that’s what I’m doing right now—writing the blog!

I’m an old-fashioned kind of girl. Back in the very old days when I was having kids, there were no such things as gender-reveal parties. Parents back then mostly didn’t know what they were getting until the baby was … well … unwrapped, as it were, and that’s when you give them a name.

To my way of thinking, writing a book is pretty much the same deal. Since I don’t outline, I don’t know what’s going to happen in any given book until it does. And the same thing holds true for creating a title. That often doesn’t come into focus until somewhere along the way.

In the case of Unnamed Joanna #22, that didn’t happen until the story was practically in the elevator and on the way to the delivery room. And here it is: Before the Trail Goes Cold. My editor actually suggested it, and as soon as she did, I thought, “Why the hell didn’t I think of that?”

And that’s all you get for a blog today. Why? Because last Friday afternoon at 5:16 PM, I finally completed the manuscript. Since then I’ve been doing a word-for-word read-through and making corrections as I go along. In its natural state, my writing tends to be plagued by echoes. That means I use the same word or phrase in close proximity far too many times, so I’ve been trying to root out as many as I can. (See there? Did you catch the two many?) And then there are the words that Auto Correct blithely changes into something else that doesn’t make a bit of sense. Too for Two, for instance. And if I make a typing error when writing the words “of these”? You can bet autocorrect will turn that into outhouse!

After completing the manuscript, I started working on corrections the first thing Saturday morning. Halfway through the writing process, I had a computer malfunction and my comprehensive name-file—one that covers a number of books in the Beaumont series and had 40,000 words in it—suddenly opened up empty! As I continued writing, I added in new names as I went, but while doing the corrections, I’m recreating the name file for the first half of the book. That’s a complex, time-consuming process.

There are 527 pages in the manuscript for Before the Trail Goes Cold. Three days into corrections, I’m on page 204, so I’d best get my rear in gear on that, too. Oh, and the Department of Licensing just let me know my driver’s license will expire on my birthday, so that’s on my To-Do list as well. But first off come corrections. I’d like the book to be in my editor’s hands by Friday afternoon.

I’ll let you know if I make the grade.

PS. Please don’t try to add that title to your pre-order list. Since the book isn’t due out until next fall, it’s way too soon for that to show up.