As many of you may already know (since I’ve been complaining about it forever), we’ve had to be out of our house for a month while water damage to our floors was repaired.

Now we’re back in our lair, and boy, does it feel good. Our own bed, our own shower, our own kitchen . . . our own everything. Once the remediation team finishes unpacking our stuff, we’ll be back to normal, more or less. Looking for a few things I couldn’t track down, I cleaned a garbage bag full of debris from my desk drawers. This was progress in an unexpected direction.

I’ve turned in the FINAL FINAL version of “Sleep Like a Baby,” the next Aurora Teagarden. I got negative feedback from my beta readers on one passage, and if I changed that one I had to change another one . . . and on and on and on.
By the time I’d corrected the manuscript, I had rewritten a third of the book.

I’ve never done revision this extensive before. I hope it’s a better novel now. I don’t know if I could rewrite any more, and I certainly hope that’s not called for.

Now I’m at the scary and exciting point where I get to start a new book. Nothing is more thrilling. And nothing is more frightening.

While I’m in full reading mode, let me share some good books I read while we were in exile on Lambert Street: "Ride the Storm" by Karen Chance, "Just One Damned Thing After Another" by Jodi Taylor, "A Darkness Absolute" by Kelley Armstrong, "The Hanging Tree" by Ben Aaronovitch, and" This is (Not) Your Song" by Laura Nowlin.

While Laura Nowlin’s book is definitely YA, and Karen Chance’s book is urban fantasy, the rest of the books – while in fantastic settings – are mysteries. And they’re all parts of series. If you like one, you have a whole lot of good reading ahead of you.

Charlaine Harris

Comments

[Mark]

Congrats on getting back into your house and on turning in your book!

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

SO interesting! Can you talk a tiny bit about what you changed?

(and I'm in massive revisions ,too, never re-organized this much, and it's daunting.)

And HURRAY Charlaine! Finished house, finished book (very thematic), and almost spring!

[Charlaine Harris]

Thanks, Mark. It was the second time I'd finished the book, but at least it's finished.

Hank, I had an unconvincing passage in the book in which Aurora is mugged. All my readers said the motive was transparent, so that plot point had to go. And with it went a whole trail of other incidents leading to and from that mugging. I didn't realize how much I rewrote until I was through.

[Elaine Viets]

Congratulations on finishing your rewrite, Charlaine. Rewriting is kind of like pulling a thread on a sweater. One little tug, and the whole thing starts unravelling. It must feel good to be back home again.

[Charlaine Harris]

Elaine, it feels wonderful. I was incredibly whiney about spending a month out of my lair.