Seems appropriate for Easter.

I sent in the latest draft of book #2 last night. Huzzah!

Finish your second book before your first book is out. Finish your second book before your first book is out. Finish your second book before your first book is out.

I can’t tell you how many times I heard that advice last year. And I tried. But sometimes circumstances—not to mention the time/space continuum—are beyond your control and you have the timeline you have and there it is. Second book stuff messes with your head. The level of odiousness it actually reaches depends on a number of things: your extant neuroses, personal history with co-dependence, past experience with success and/or failure, and, let us not forget, hormonal cycles. The number of times I collapsed into tears over the past several weeks is approximately equal to the number of peanut M&Ms I consumed during that same time span. That is to say: a lot. The weird thing is it really has nothing to do with the book itself or the actual writing process and craft. It’s all a head game. Thanks for the emails and notes of encouragement, by the way.

This coming week I am working full-time at jobjob and hopefully catching up with the areas of my life (i.e. all of it) that have been sorely neglected during the last month…like the Netflix movies unwatched, the checkbooks unbalanced, the books unread, the meals uncooked, the CDs unlistened to or recently added to collection (like Son Volt! and The Hold Steady!), the tulips unappreciated, etc. I also need to pledge to KRCL, do my toenails, and catch up with my email. I hope you have all been behaving.

(By the way, if you are reading this at sarazarr.com, I’ve disabled comments there for the moment. So much comment spam, even with the word verification. Sorry! You are welcome to comment at the LiveJournal version, and you don’t even have to register or anything.)