Fall is in the air, and it\u2019s been a glorious week for getting my steps. Not too cold; not too hot\u2014as it actually was one day last week. Overcast, yes, some of the time, but not actually raining.<\/p>\n
After what one blog reader called my \u201cslugfest,\u201d the slugs vanished\u2014the very next day after the blog went live! Since then, I\u2019ve seen only one of those and a single earth worm, but the slugs all have gone to wherever slugs go.<\/p>\n
The petunia baskets are about to give up the ghost. The fuchsia baskets I received on Mother\u2019s Day are still hanging in. They\u2019ve been glorious all summer long, but I can tell they won\u2019t be around much longer. And once the temps get too low, it\u2019ll be time to stop feeding the fish. I\u2019m pretty sure they\u2019ll miss my visits for a while, but eventually they\u2019ll hibernate.<\/p>\n
The last time I wrote about juggling three balls was while I was finishing writing a Joanna book, waiting for the copy-editing on an Ali book, and getting ready to go on tour with a Beaumont\u2014a book written two years and two whole books ago. <\/p>\n
Remembering the details of Den of Iniquity<\/em> was problematic to begin with, but eventually I got back into the swing of things. Talking about JP and his issues and exploits was fun. These days, he\u2019s more like an old friend than he is a fictional character.<\/p>\n Fortunately, the editorial letter on the Joanna book didn\u2019t show up until most of the Beaumont events and interviews were over. Longtime readers of this blog have become familiar with the three stages of editing. I write a book and send the manuscript to New York. The editorial letter is the first stage in the publisher\u2019s part of the editing process. My editor reads the manuscripts and sends back her suggestions. Once I make those and return them to her, I receive what\u2019s known as the D&A payment\u2014aka Delivery and Acceptance.<\/p>\n Longtime readers of this blog are probably also aware that I\u2019m not a fan of outlining. I encountered outlining for the first time in Mrs. Watkins’s sixth grade Geography class. I hated outlining on sight, and nothing that has happened to me in the intervening decades has changed my mind about outlining.<\/p>\n In other words, when I start writing a book. I may name the baby, but I don\u2019t necessarily know how the story is going to end. That was the situation with By Reason of Insanit<\/em>y, Joanna Brady #20, a book that was named shortly after I wrote the first few pages. The problem is, the name was related to what I thought would be the ending\u2014which, as it turned out, wasn\u2019t exactly what I expected. <\/p>\n So when the editorial letter came, that was the editor\u2019s first request\u2014that I consider a title change. Since I had finished the book and already noticed that discrepancy, renaming it wasn\u2019t a big issue. Joanna Brady # 20 is now called The Girl from Devil\u2019s Lake.<\/em> <\/p>\n My work on that ended last week, and I\u2019m waiting for the D&A check to land in my checking account any minute. The next time I encounter Brady #20 it’ll be at Editing, Stage 3, and I\u2019ll be looking at the type-set galley.<\/p>\n Which brings me to the last of those three juggling balls, the copy-editing for the Ali book, Overkill<\/em>, which arrived in my mailbox on Tuesday. That\u2019s NY editing, Stage 2. I\u2019m working my way through the manuscript right now. It\u2019s going fairly smoothly, and I\u2019m more than halfway done. <\/p>\n I\u2019m hoping to have the copy editing completed by Friday. If that\u2019s the case, I\u2019ve already got a book lined up to read over the weekend, and I\u2019m looking forward to it. <\/p>\n It\u2019s about time I got back to reading someone else\u2019s books.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve missed that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fall is in the air, and it\u2019s been a glorious week for getting my steps. Not too cold; not too hot\u2014as it actually was one day last week. Overcast, yes, some of the time, but not actually raining. After what one blog reader called my \u201cslugfest,\u201d the slugs vanished\u2014the very next day after the blog […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-OY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3161,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160\/revisions\/3161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}