Saturday 18 April 2009

Bliss, and wet dog

rainy in am, then partial clearing, temps 11

great day. very still...rained this morning, but I love rainy days. Perhaps not all the time, but once in a while, perfect. Love the sound of falling rain, and the fragrance of wet grass, and earth, and dog.

Finally got back into the writing zone. Happy again with what I'm doing. had to go back over my notes to figure out the clues...am at that stage! Can be quite confusing. And, as you'll see when you read it, there are a number of things woven together so I want to make sure thwere aren't any huge honkin' holes.

Went out for dinner tonight...tried a new pasta place in the village. OK but not great. Michael's was better than mine. We were actually there celebrating end of taxed and end of line edits (or proofs). All ready to be sent back to the editors. Michael, dear one, does the line proofs for me since I find it very difficult to try to write one book and be totally immersed in the editing of the last. So he spent three days doing it, and asking me whenever there was an issue. Happily Nancy, the UK proofs editor, is fabulous - she caught a few details. And we have a couple of friends here, Susan and Lili, both of whom read the manuscript and picked up on some issues and some typos and French mistakes...

But now it's done and I'll send it off on Monday.

Now, two glorious days of nothing!!! No social events, no interviews, no speaking engagements - nothing except writing. Bliss. The easiest part of my life is writing. The rest is hard...and for someone like me, the hardest is trying to do it all at once. There are periods I feel like I'm just barely holding on to order.

Happily, these days all's well. Perhaps I'm missing something.

What wisdom there is in living one day at a time. At being able to plan ahead but not project. And really being very present...not worrying about tomorrow. When I can do that, well, today is wonderful and all I need.

Can't always do it though. Oh, well. At least I'm trying.

Be well - talk tomorrow...

2 comments:

Jo B. said...

You are so right...it is very difficult to juggle all the balls at once. Life is much easier when we don't have all the distractions, but is that really what we want? Glad you have some time to just write!

Louise Penny Author said...

Hi Jo B,

I don't know. I try to comfort myself when stressed by saying it's better than having nothing to do...and how many people would be happy to change places. But I also think a little more balance would be good.