Rain? Always hopeful

 

Rain all weekend, they said, and we all rejoiced. But then they said, “Maybe a little on Saturday, but for sure on Sunday.” Sunday was indeed gray, like it could rain soon. Christian worried that Jacob wouldn’t get his practice golf game it, but he did with no problems. By late afternoon, I was sitting at my desk, French doors to the patio open, marveling at how still the world was. Still waiting for rain.

All of a sudden, a whisp of cool air, and the wind was ruffling the trees. The sky darkened, and I thought, “Here it comes for sure.” Pretty soon, though, it was still again. Now an hour later there is the lightest breeze moving the trees, it is still too gray for the time of day, and the air definitely feels cooler. But rain? Not yet.

My family has gone to a John Mayer concert in Dallas. Jordan got home at three-something on the Vonlane bus from Austin, and they were all out the door at four-thirty to ride the train to Dallas. Made me, just awake from a deep nap tired, but then I am not a John Mayer fan, though I admit if I were ever to go to a concert, his is probably one I’d like better than a lot of others. I think the boys in the family deserve credit for being willing to make the mom happy—Christian bought expensive tickets not because he’s wild about Mayer but because he’s wild about Jordan who is wild about Mayer. And Jacob? I doubt it’s his kind of music, but he got to take a buddy, and he’ll enjoy the outing. And if Sawyer, the hard rock musician in the family, could go last week and enjoy, so can Jacob and his friend.

Meanwhile I sit home and wait for rain. In a few minutes I’ll fix myself a loin lamb chop and a salad. I’ve written the last line of the first draft of Finding Florence, the third of my Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries. No, I didn’t rush it off to the printer. There’s lots of work ahead—editing on my part which means at least two more pass throughs, sending the mss. to beta readers, and considering their suggestions and questions, sending it to my longtime mentor if he is still ready to read, then sending it to a professional editor who works with cozy mysteries. Finally, I’ll send it to a graphic designer for formatting, cover design. One more proofing, and then she’ll post it to Amazon. Yep, it’s a months-long project.

But I’ve been thinking about what happens when you write a novel. One thing that’s come to my mind is that at the end of that first draft is you know your characters a lot better. That means, for me, that now as I go back and start over, I have to tweak the characters to let the reader know them better. I must fill our not only descriptions but actions and words by which they reveal themselves.

And another thing I found tonight just going over three chapters is that as I went through that first draft, I was putting words on paper—but sometimes they contradicted each other, or left holes in the plot, or raised questions, “Why did so-and-so do that?” or “Would she really have said that?”

I won’t read more chapters tonight because I want to do this slowly with focused concentration. After a bit, my focus wanders. So I’ll spend the rest of the evening reading that Diane Mott Davidson novel I’m deep into—Dark Tort. A good mystery with lots of food talk and recipes.

Have a great week everyone!