I might recommend getting a couple of your first readers to give you feedback if you finish it before I get that far and then getting me a manuscript incorporating any revisions inspired by their comments to assess for marketing....

Heh. Heh heh heh.

connie, yep - but the core of that is that she trusts me to be able to weigh the feedback and use what I need. Also, to pick WIP readers in the first place. (edit: and not my editor - this is my agent, Jennifer Jackson at DMLA)

What's hilarious is the suggestion that I get feedback. muHA!

What I wrote back, in part:

I've had 32 WIP readers on this one, and they've been getting chapters as I write them. I've been going back and assessing and incorporating as I receive feedback. The feedback on this has been a steady constant stream, with - scarily - virtually no disagreement between the WIP readers.

Once this one's done, I think it'll be close to ready to ship. And I've already got a synopsis.

I know, I know. Ruth's complaint: I write too fast.

I can't believe I have two new projects and neither one really has a plot yet...I really thought I was getting better at this.

erika, did the books get there?

I know I've been away a bit, but I love this drabble topic. It spoke to me.

The Air We Breathe Drabble

The air is heavy with scent. Seaweed and salt and rugosa rosa twine like jellyfish tentacles, a gentle undulation of water brushing earth brushing water. It is thick and wet on my skin, a warm coating of ocean and sand. I breathe it in: the Atlantic, McCook’s Beach, crabs tempted from under tide pool rocks with bits of snails. The way the moon skips like a rock across the waves. My first kiss. The summer I turned sixteen; the winter I turned thirty.

Even on another ocean, the air I breathe is haunted by the pinks and blues of memory.

Not yet...probably this afternoon, though.Maybe they will help. Either because I say "Yeah...I could do it like that." or "No way! Is this guy on the pipe?" Either way, it might focus my approach.

It's always fun to call the authors of books idiots.

Is there a mailroom or something in your complex, erika? The USPS site says the package was delivered at noon on Saturday.

Kristin, lovely. Water brushing earth brushing water.

Deep into the second half of chapter 13. The roller coaster analogy was used for it by a few WIP readers, but I feel more like the driver of a curricle, with a pair of restless, very strong thoroughbreds harnessed up: I'm trying to rein them in and they want to gallop. Not good for the pacing.

Of course, if I do just let it rip, it'll take some breath away, I think.

No...will have to askif we got one of those P.O. sticky things...you know "You got a package..." Mom was pretty busy this weekend. Maybe she forgot to mention it. Crap. I do live in the mail theft capital...we're very proud. But it's early going yet. How disappointed would that identity-theft wanna-be be? Provided he does not write up his exploits.