Edits are done! Hurrah! And all bundled up and ready to go to Fed Ex on lunch today. I was right, I ran out of time to do a spreadsheet, darn it. You know, it's funny. One of my engineers (or I guess I should say one of my former engineers since she's in a different department now) is getting married in the fall and she's using spreadsheets. I've been giving her crap about that, but I suddenly went, Oops! Guess I like my spreadsheets too. Of course, I'm not going to tell her that, and I'll keep teasing her, because that's what I do with engineers. :-)
Since I didn't have time to type up everything the way I wanted, I settled for hitting the highlights. I marked some of them with post-it notes, and if it was something that I disagreed with the copy editor about, I did a quick table in my word processing program and answered the query, explaining why I didn't make any changes. Like when the query for page 88 or something like that said, "tell us earlier how long he's been trapped." I replied, it says on page 53 and quoted it. There wasn't too much. I mostly just went okay and fixed it. :-)
Unfortunately, I didn't finish until after 9pm, and as I was making a last email check, I hear this really loud bang out on my deck. Of course, I immediately became wide awake and try to decide which phone to make a run for if someone is trying to break in. And I remind myself, make sure to unplug the phone cord from the laptop to disconnect before you run. There was no other noise and I finally worked up enough courage to flip on the outside light and actually check it out. Nothing.
I wasn't quite brave enough, though, to check out the basement, and when I went to bed, I was pretty tense, thinking a criminal was lying in wait for me to sleep, then he'd spring. Yes, writers have overactive imaginations. It helps when we're telling our stories, but it absolutely makes real life an adventure at times--even if it's only in our own minds. :-) Anyway, I'm darn tired today after 3 nights without enough sleep and no matter what, I'm going to bed early tonight.
I had some horrible news in email this morning--my Waldenbooks store is closing! NO!!!! This store has always been fabulous, not only to me as an author, but as a book buyer too. I can't believe they're closing this store again. They closed them once before back in the mid-90s and then reopened them again. Which means the only two bookstores I have in my area now are a huge Borders and a huge Barnes & Noble. I like my smaller Waldenbooks so much more. If you have a favorite bookstore, a place where people know your name when you come in, imagine them closing it. I'm heartbroken.
