The odd thing is that I’ve spent most of the months that we’ve written or talked about or avoided WHEN YOU DON’T SEE ME (the real title of TJB5) feeling a little uncomfortable with the narrator.
Ultimately, near the end, I realized that I probably felt that way because it’s what I needed to help the narrator have discomfort within himself.
Plus I found a thousand ways to relive one of the worst events that took place in my lifetime. It would have been crazy if that left me unaffected.
Now, here we are, on the brink of shipping a manuscript, and I find that it’s happened again. I fell hard for a character who’s about to slip beyond my control.
I can anticipate: yearning, loss, and anxiety. Then other characters will come between us (I do have another manuscript due March 1, after all), and I’ll be fine. Until the novel is actually released, at which time all my emotions will be condensed into one: terror. Until the first reactions come in. The people who love the book will help me relax and love it again. And the people who slam it will make me love it more. Ha.
At least I know what to expect now.
Book ready now? 🙂
On shelf tomorrow? 🙂
Please? 🙂
Oh, the torturous pace of publishing… By the time a book is released, I’m so far beyond it that I have to remind myself that everybody hasn’t already read it.
Like the time in a chat room when I accidentally gave away the end to IT HAD TO BE YOU to someone who’d just started it. Oops. (Hey, Ryan, if you’re still reading here. =) )
Becky, how do you actually create what will become a book? I mean, do you start out with the story already written out? do you the chapters already laid out? I’ve always wondered how other writers do that. I wish I could sit down and know what will be in different chapters. Know what must be put where, even before I’ve written the story.
I’m not ignoring this question, which is a good one that deserves its own post. As soon as I’ve slept.
Is there a pub date yet for the new book (he selfishly asks…)?
I think it is September 2007 for TJB5. Not sure about the second Coventry. Thank you for asking and caring!
I just finished your Coventry Christmas book…
I loved it and was thrilled when I got to the end and realized there was a fellow Bamer on the other end (oddly enough another Bama Grad gave me the book as a Christmas present.) I’m an avorious reader and spend a lot of time wrapped up in the written word – most “love with moderate lust” books as my family calls them. I’m a sucker for a happy ending and this book gave me 3 – thanks. I lived in Houston fresh out of BAMA at the corner of Westheimer and Fondren in the Creekside apartments – and worked at one of the office building in the Galleria complex. My son was born at hospital just West of that intersection – the name escapes me now. Anyway thanks for a great book and a great read and ROLL TIDE ROLL – Debra Borheck
Re: I just finished your Coventry Christmas book…
Hi, Debra, thanks for writing, and ROLL TIDE indeed! I’m glad you enjoyed the book.
I’m sure you don’t miss Houston’s weather. =)
I like happy endings, too.