Working title: "There Was an Old Woman." Titles I discarded: "Safe as Houses" "Fly Away Home" "Squirrels in the Attic."
All the hard work is done, but I am of course still working on the ending. Got to make it feel satisfying, tied up, but not too pat.
But instead I'm back tinkering around with the beginning, tweaking the middle parts. Running Spell Checker -- again. And all the while, I swing back and forth from thinking, 'Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, it's all wonderful," to "Blech. What was I thinking?" Once I send it in, I know I'll be obsessing over every decision when I should be starting the next book.
What makes this so much easier to take is that my fellow Reds are just conflicted, as our daily back and forth emails attest.Today I offer you a peek behind the curtain with this cut and paste -- not saying who said what.
Red 1: In a crunch here for the next month..gotta go.
Red 2: We need that spa getaway:) xo
Red 3: Yes we do. Oh, sigh, freaking out a little. I've got to write my words for today before I do anything else.
Red 4: I am beyond freaking out. My deadline is so far behind me that I can barely see it in the rearview mirror.
Red 5: If I had any sense I'd be freaking out, but I'm in a strange place - Ripping manuscript to shreds, moving chapters...redeploying...I suddenly have this image of Scarlett O'Hara making a dress out of her mother's portieres.Red 6: I'm still looking for the curtains to use!! (This is the first time ever I'm writing without an outline. Every day is a surprise...)
Red 7: Oh, I just BURST out laughing. I'm so sorry....we are a pretty interesting crew….
Red 8: I know--I go through that all the time--between the agony (it's going to come out. nobody's going to notice) and the ecstasy (It will be a mega hit, everyone will love me). It's constantly one or the other.
HALLIE: Among the eight of us we've published 80! books. Are we sorry creatures or what? So here's my question: Do guys do this??
