2001-01-03
Hi! Happy new year and all that. I'm back and I'm refreshed, more or less. I took the week between Xmas and New Years off from work.
On the 24th B and I drove to see his family, stopping briefly on the way to see my father and his wonderful new love. I can't remember the last time I met someone I so immediately and thoroughly liked. B is the reticent type, particularly when it comes to meeting new people, but even he was enthusiastic about her. What an unexpected pleasure; I would love it if she officially joined the family.
The time we spent at his parents'--from about nine Sunday evening to about six Monday evening--wasn't quite so enjoyable. Maybe this had something to do with the relative lengths of the visits. B pointed out Monday morning that my family has the right idea about get-togethers: short and sweet. (Not that 21 hours, nine or so of them sleeping, consitutes a long visit, but we'd been at my fathers for a scant two hours.) For any extended reunions, my family tends to stay in hotels, meeting up for meals then dispersing to our rooms to recover. I do like our approach.
We brought the new beagle along with us, correctly suspecting that his presence would liven up the trip. He behaved angelically throughout, a surprise considering he's been relentlessly mischievous at home. (When one night's mischief involved the ingestion of half a dozen pieces of nicotine chewing gum, we learned about using hydrogen peroxide to induce vomiting, some knowlege we could've done without.)
Upon our return we were fairly homebound. I was particularly so, given that my car was at the dealer's for two days for a couple minor repairs I wanted to get done before the warranty expires. The fact that they kept the car for two days for probably 40 minutes' worth of work steamed me but since being carless meant I spent two days cleaning house and working on the rewrite of the novel, I was pretty sanguine about the whole thing by the time I picked up the car. Then the clown of a service manager told me I'd be getting a survey from Volvo to ask about my experience; he really wanted me to give them a rating of excellent, he explained, because that was how he kept his job and put food on the table for his kids. "Maybe you should think about your kids' food when you schedule the usual number of customers even though two-thirds of your staff is on vacation," I said. (No, not really.)
So I got a lot of work done on the book. I'm sure I'm jinxing myself but I have to say it's coming along well. I really think it's better: richer, deeper, more logically sequential and much better paced. Not that I can be so terribly objective. I'd estimate it'll take another few weeks to finish this draft (my goal had been year's end) and then it'll go to two readers, friends of mine, for critique. Then, depending on what they say, I hope it won't be long before I feel ready to send it to -- I hesitate to say "my agent" since we've had no contact since August so let's just say the agent.
One indisputable thing about the book is that it's longer. The version that went out to editors last summer was 218 pages; I'm now up to 274 and suspect it will get a bit longer still. This feels like a considerable accomplishment. I'd love to get it to 300 but 280 would be just fine. Hell, 274 is fine.
What else? Once I got my car back I spent one day running errands: I was a returning fiend, batting a thousand with Xmas gifts that weren't quite right and a bunch of junk that's been sitting on our "to return" shelf for months. Speaking of Xmas gifts, though, I did quite well with the items I put on my wishlist for B's family. I'd requested a pair of shoes and a pair of boots and miraculously both (a) were in stock, (b) fit, and (c) live up to my hopes based on viewing them only in catalogs. Color me happy.
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