FROM THE WRITER'S DESK - A WRITER'S CHRISTMAS

My Christmas gift to myself: completion of the first draft of my book!

I worked thirteen hours on Christmas Day, and completed what is by my definition, a decent first draft of the ENTIRE book. Now I have six weeks till the publishers deadline to review and revise at my leisure. That part will be fun. I had LOTS of doubts about my ability to follow through with an entire book -- into, chapters, references, index, biblio- webliography -- -- but I did it.

Enough time has passed that I can talk about my experience with the first publisher, who will remain unnamed. Our email discussions began in March 2005, when my "editor" wrote me that my book is a "must" for his catalog. Email assurances were repeated in June and August, but no contract.

In September a colleague called me from the East Coast to tell me my book was listed in this publishers catalog as forthcoming. This freaked me out since I had no contract with them and was already negotiating with another publisher. It turns out that the law was on my side (they cannot legally publicize a book without a contract), so I considered it good advance publicity. AND quickly signed a contract with Mitch Allen of Left Coast Press. Much later I heard through the grapevine that my "editor" from the first publisher left the job to move to Denmark and teach yoga! No wonder he wasn't interested in my book.

The photo is not where I am but where I hope to be tomorrow. Jonathan and I are preparing for our annual ski trip to Lake Tahoe. But we are monitoring the weather reports carefully, because a big storm is coming through the mountains tomorrow. I've been caught three times in a blizzard on Donner Pass and don't want it to happen again. Pretty scary!