I keep the book in my head - actually in the gaps of my teeth

overcast, gray, snow turning to rain, highs plus 2

Michael's doing his new back exercises and I'm getting caught up on emails. Had a good day yesterday running around going to appointments. Michael's eyes are VERY good. And his back is doing well.

I went to the periodentist for a cleaning. Quite like the periodentist. Gives me time to think. Realized I had a word wrong in the manuscript, and came up with a couple of small ideas. It's a quiet time in the day, except for my occasional squeal when the nerve gets hit. Or the woman doing the cleaning makes tsking sounds. It was pretty much an hour of squeal, tsk, squeal, tsk.

Apparently I have some rather large gaps between my gums and some teeth. Small communities live in there, and I'm planning a condo development. Perhaps, on snowy days, I can park the Volvo in there too.

Heard from the UK publicist and I have an event with Brian Freeman, a wonderful American writers of mystery/thrillers, at Heffers books in Cambridge, at 12:30 on Thursday April 17th. Also have a critics and booksellers party to go to in London the night before. And Sherise, my editor at Headline, wrote to pass mon a wonderful review of The Cruelest Month in the Birmingham Post, by Mike Ripley - one of the funniest and warmest men in the business. He teaches Crime Fiction at Cambridge, as co-incidence would have it.

They're also exploring the possibility of my doing a cruise with Cunard lines...being one of their guest speakers. Wouldn't that be fantastic?

Wasn't going to write yesterday, but gravitated back to the laptop in the Montreal apartment and ended up putting in 4 hours. Not all that many words added, but fine tuning some of the stuff I had and adding some descriptions. I realize I'm not all that great at physical descritpions. I keep forgetting to put them in. Partly, I think, because I see the people so clearly. Partly because I figure you all know what the village and the characters look like (short sighted, really, since many people come to the series late). But mostly, I've come to realize (a dental chair revelation) because I'm concentrating on their inner selves and not actually all that interested in what they look like on the outside. I think I've gotten better at realizing the editors are absolutely right, and people want to 'see' the characters, not just feel them. So I was doing a bit of that yesterday.

Must be off. Breakfast - cafe au lait at a local cafe with fresh fruit while Michael has cafe au lait and something (anything) with bacon. Yesterday it was a fruit filled crepe with maple syrup and whipped cream! Boys.

Speak to you tomorrow and hope this finds you well.