3rd draft

sunny, beautiful day, temps 32

Hot but not humid. Really, a very beautiful summer day here in Montreal. Have finished the first day of the 3rd draft and am sitting on our balcony looking out over the private park at the back of our building. Very tranquil, except for the endless work being done on the building across from us. The poor people who live in that building!!

Didn't get so far on the third draft...only about ten pages....but while in New York I had a couple of ideas for this book, and especially the beginning - which I have now re-written three times. I've had to do that with a few books. The beginning of Still Life - the opening chapter I mean - didn't come to me until after about a year. And I remember taking a bound print out of THE BRUTAL TELLING with us to Cambridge, in the UK. We were there a couple of years ago, in Sept, for Michael's 50th reunion. I thought I had just the fine-tuning of THE BRUTAL TELLING to do, and so was looking forward to sitting in one of the famous walled gardens at his college, or by the banks of the Cam river, reading the manuscript for my latest book. One of those 'pinch me' moments.

Well, the 'pinch me' moment became a 'kick me' session.

I read the manuscript with growing horror - and nausea. I'm not kidding. When something's wrong in my life, and certainly in my work, it sits in my stomach.

I was so upset, and disconcerted. Here it was, September already. I thought I'd all but finished the book, and now I'm reading it, and hating it! So I sat down with a red pen and started crossing things out, and moving things, and re-working the opening...inded, reworked a lot of it. Just hoping to save it. Pull it from the fire.

Interestingly, when I'd finished I adored the book...it was worth every moment of anxiety (i say that now that the book is out and is fine - at the time it was excruciating). Sometimes it seems the more I have to struggle, the better the book is. Means I really am writing close to the bone - and more and more in touch with the characters and the story I want to tell. So that if something is off I know about it, and can't let it go. The issue then becomes, how to fix it.

So today I worked on the beginning of this book, and I think I got it right...but that's the power of finishing a draft then waiting a week or so...gives me time to disconnect, and be able to come at it with fresh eyes. The eyes of the reader. And to know if the book is as good as it can be.

But it sure is a relief right now to say I'm pleased with where it's at.

Also wanted to tell you that the novella I wrote for literacy is now available for pre-order. Not actually sure when it'll be released, but you can go to Amazon.ca and order it. It's called THE HANGMAN. Now, I do need to warn you that it's really just a quite long short story, and while it has Gamache, and is set in Three Pines, it is written at a grade 3 level, so the wording is perforce very simple. As is the story.

It's meant for emerging readers...but is certainly aimed at adults. So you might like it too. And the money goes to literacy organizations.

We're meeting Susan for breakfast tomorrow, then Michael has a dentist appointment and a meeting with our accountant and friend, Frank. Then we're off home.

It's a bit of a trade-off in sweltering weather. The Montreal apartment has airconditioning. But the country home has a pool.

Woe is me, who has to make such choices. Yes, I know, I don't get to complain. Well, just try to stop me!

Hope you're well - speak to you tomorrow!

Just plain cold

overcast, temps minus 24

OK, jokes over. We can return to normally scheduled programming now. Please. This is cold by even Quebec standards. And where the ice and snow in the trees was glorious yesterday, now I notice many trees bending over, and branches on the ground where they've grown too brittle and broken. Must get out there with a broom and whack our honeysuckle bush.

Still, this is actually pretty much winter here. A few days every winter of desperate cold. Followed by three months of just plain very cold. And a couple months of simply cold.

I actually quite like it. Except for the cold, of course.

Am by the fireplace again, sending My Assistant Lise info on permissions for the sixth book...poetry. Mostly Margaret Atwood. and need to register for Bouchercon. It's a huge crime readers and writers convention. Moves around each year. This year it's in San Francisco in October.

Listening to the soundtrack to The Piano. Loved the film...love the score.

Some people have asked about THE HANGMAN. It's a novella I've written featuring Gamache and a murder in Three Pines. It's part of a new Canadian literacy project called Quick Reads, based on a very successful programme in the UK. Recognizing that emerging readers, adults, are not interested in reading books for kids - that it is in fact insulting and counter-productive to offer them that - the literacy groups decided to approach writers and ask for very short books (slightly longer than a short story) that can be read by adults at a grade 3 to 5 reading level. I was asked to be part of the first wave of Canadian novelists. Very exciting. As you might know, I'm quite involved in literacy campaigns here. How exciting to help someone discover not only the practicalities of reading, but the joy and power! The comfort. The excitement.

THE HANGMAN is the novella I came up with. Just being edited now. I believe it will be published this fall and should be available in the States as well as Canada.

I hope it isn't crap. That would be disappointing.

Quiet day today. Will continue reading the mass market proofs for THE BRUTAL TELLING...finding some odd mistakes...and one howler, as some of you know... will say no more.

I adore days like this...quiet reading, small easy tasks, feeding the birds with Trudy...and working myself up to a bath. Bliss.

Hope this find you enjoying your Sunday. Sorry about the blast of cold Canadian air we've sent south. I blame society.

9

sunny, mild, lovely day, temps 20

Stunning day - not a cloud. Beautiful walking weather. Michael and I had breakfast, then I headed off to check out netbooks at Bureau en Gros, which is a big office supply chain. Looking at Toshiba and Samsung, but they didn't have the types I'd found online with great reviews. Will keep looking. I think with the amount I travel, the volume of email and the need to do some writing (but not other stuff) a netbook makes more sense than a new laptop. Love my old one, even though the letter have almost completely worn off the keyboard. It's a clunky old thing, but mine.

But for traveling, I think a netbook would work.

Got my haircut by Olivier...he did a great job. Then had Linda remove my moustache with hot wax. Yikes! I have this done about once a year. I'm lucky that I'm quiet fair and the odd black, wiry hair can be plucked...so the hot wax and feathers treatment isn't essential all the time. Though they actually don't put feathers on. Instead she uses some sort of sandpaper-like strip and rip the top layer of skin (and presumably, hair) right out. My upper lip was deep purple. Not exactly an improvement - and we have quite a formal affair tonight at McGill University - the investiture of a chair in medicine.

Linda, being quite understanding, said she'd get rid of the purple by smearing a calming cream on it. When I looked in the mirror I had a Fu Manchu of green paste. I whizzed around to stare at Linda. She explained that the green hid the purple. Which was true. But it was still green. Under my nose. Can you imagine showing up at a formal cocktail in a room filled with medical specialists, looking like I had a petrie dish on my upper lip?

The haircut would have to be pretty spectacular to overcome that. And it wasn't that good.

I went into the washroom and wiped the green goop off. So now I have a slightly numb, slightly purple upper lip. Perhaps, like Queens of old, I should put a big fake mole on my cheek, as a diversion.

Or, maybe I can decide the entire room isn't that interested in me. Yes, perhaps that will be my beauty secret today. Modesty.

Came home and wrote 15-hundred words on the novella that now has a name. The Hangman. It will be published in the fall of 2010 and features Chief Inspector Gamache and a murder in - you guessed it - Three Pines! Such fun to be back there. Am about to write a scene between Gamache and Myrna. What a challenge writing for adults who read at about a grade 4 level. It sure makes me think. And simplfy my language.

Time to get my party frock on. Off to the ceremony and party, then home to watch Obama's speech on health care.

By the way, happy 9/9/09.

Be well.