Anticipating a birth

If you read this blog much at all, you know I have four children. And many of you know that I've never given birth. All of my babies (now ranging in age from 44 to 38) are adopted. Every once in a while I had a pang of regret that I didn't have that period of anticipation, of waiting for a birth. Most of them arrived unexpectedly on the scene, only to be greeted with great joy.
But now I feel another kind of birth coming on--I'm getting ready to birth another Kelly O'Connell Mystery. I know it's ahead of me. I've signed a contract. I have a sort-of synopsis, and fleeting thoughts about it go through my mind, little ideas that I mostly try to jot down. One important thing is that I know the first two lines: Keisha says to Kelly, "Someone's trying to kill Miss Lorna," and Kelly says, "Did you just say the coffee is ready?" Not sure what comes next--it will happen when it happens. Sometimes I'm anxious to get on with it, and other times I put it aside in my thinking. Is that like pregnancy? You will have to tell me. My deadline (or due date) is still quite a way off, so I know I'm early. I have time to procrastinate.
And I have a novel by someone else to edit, at least one guest blog to write. Plus it's amazing how much time yoga, lunch with friends, etc., can take out of my day. School is out in two days, and Jacob will not be spending his afternoons with me, which will I think make a whole different work schedule. On the other hand now that I'm not so rushed on school days, I've made several luncheon appointments so I may be shooting myself in the foot.
I know to the mothers amongst you comparing the birth of a baby to that of a novel is ludicrous, and I'm sure the discomfort of pregnancy and difficulty of birth can't compare, but I will say birthing a novel is not easy. The process leading up to it can be filled with doubt, anguish, despair--it's seldom pure joy, though there my be moments of that. And you'd think once you've given birth to it--sent it off to the publisher--it's all easy. But not so--there are revisions and marketing and waiting for reviews.
I  think ultimately I'll produce a novel I'm proud of, but nothing like the pride I feel in those four grown children! They are wonderful human beings; my novels are always going to be genre fiction.
 

A super event, blogging, and a talk with my son

In spite of my promise not to post tonight, I find I'm home earlier than I thought and less tired. So I'll report tht our event--an onstage interview with an author, followed by signings--went well. We had over 500 tickets out for 450 seats but the 10% no-show rate held, and we had a packed audience but no overflow. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, it was a funny, interesting interview, and it all went well. TCU Press got lot of credit from the author, so that was good. There was a party afterwards to which I was invited but I begged off and came comfortably home to my cat and dog.
Three of my four children call me two, three, four times a week. Colin and Megan call when they're bored on their drive home from work; Jordan just calls--we usually talk once a day and often email several times a day. I love being in touch with them and hearing stories of their families. Sometimes we talk about deeper topics, but it's often a kind of "What's going on?" conversation. But I can go a couple of weeks without hearing from Jamie, which he doesn't seem to think is strange at all. He called last night at 9:45, asked if I was asleep, and we talked for 45 minutes--a wonderful conversation about everything from his moving his office to political theory, some about the current presidential race, some about his daughters who are lights in my life. I truly enjoyed it a lot and emailed him today to tell him so. It's the same when I go to Dallas to visit--because he picks me up in downtown Dallas and he lives in Frisco (as Melanie describes it, just south of the Oklahoma border), we have a long drive home--and we always have good conversations then. So I guess I'll stop complaining about never hearing from him--or his family. I thought I had Maddie, age nine, getting into the habit of emailing, but apparently not. And for a while, she tried to teach me about text messaging, but that went away too. I love it that I can have meaninful conversations with all my children. We've all grown up to be great friends.
At the event tonight, a woman came up to me and said she was a counselor at the middle school my children attended. I thanked her for speaking to me and told her that my children had all grown up to be lovely, nice people, married wonderful spouses, and had given me seven grandchildren. "I never doubted it," she said. Talk about pride. It's funny, but there are people in this city who remember me as the mother of my kids, not the press director, not the author. And that's how I hope my obituary reads--I am first and foremost a mom and a grandmom.
Today I read an article in Atlantic Monthly by a professional journalist on why he blogs. It was a deep, intellectual, convoluted article, but what I got out of it was that a blogger is free to say what he or she wants, thinks, believes. No worries about what an editor will think, whether or not it will sell, etc. It's sort of the ultimate in freedom of expression. And I guess that's why I blog. When you write mysteries, your concentration is always on what an agent and/or editor will think. When you blog--and particularly when you get feedback--it's sort of like talking to folks. I'm not much for being onstage--too shy--but this is an easy way to be onstage.