Go you, AL. Enjoy that Kinko's moment. Well, my instructor used to call it that, because we'd get copies for class and do our "victory lap" then.I'm coming up on 2 years Buffistaness, and it's FG.

erika, the sweetest thing is I don't even have to submit hard copy. Just email off the file tomorrow morning.

The not-so-sweet is, writing up till the deadline means I only did partial editing as I wrote, and these last couple chapters may stink up my editor's inbox. But since the publisher is heavily invested in revisions (and they only gave me eight weeks to write the damn thing), I'm senidng a big honking disclaimer to the same effect, and have made notes here, there and everywhere about stuff I want to polish.

Still...I want a big hot bath made entirely of the words THE END, and I want to soak in it until my shoulders stop aching. :-)

Yay, you!

Hi, Kessie. What sort of tips?

AmyLiz, do you also get the weird blank minute of near-panic when you've finished? "Oh, crap, my house is untenanted!" panic?

I'm looking forward to that in about a month, when I finish "Matty Groves". Then I'm going to start the two periods of research for book four, "Cruel Sister." Then I'm having to have nervous collapse and drool on things.

I'm going to start writing again tomorrow. I haven't been since I got the gestational hypertension diagnosis. I was kinda thrown for a loop at first; also, they gave me such vague instructions at the first appointment I wasn't sure just how much bedrest I was on. I feel all rusty, but I know it'll happen again, but worse, once the baby is born, so I need to get in the habit of getting back in the saddle as soon as I'm able.

Laptop for Susan!

Late, but still:

erika, I loved the piece you posted - so honest, with such a fresh-to-me way of looking at things, spiced with snark.

deb, I loved "Still Life with Devils" - I still have images of it in my mind's eye, which is the best way for a book to stay with me.

Welcome, Kessie. fellow mother-tongue-other-than-English speaker (mine is Hebrew).

Congratulations, AmyLiz!

Thanks, Nilly. I hope eventually somebody likes it that isn't us. Not that I don't write for Buffistas.

Thanks, Nilly!

do you also get the weird blank minute of near-panic when you've finished? "Oh, crap, my house is untenanted!" panic?

Last night, I was so elated, no. That will come, but it will more like an insidious, creeping thing, where at strange moments a paragraph or scene will come back to me and I'll think, Well, that sucked. With only eight weeks to write it (and I know it's only 50,000 words, but still) I know there's plenty of stuff to polish. So...revisions. Um, whoopee. :-)

Is The Great Flower of Serving Men (did I get that right, it's on the previous page) the book after Weaver? Which, by the way, is on my Wish List now. :-) Such a cool idea for a mystery series. And what's Still Life with Devils? Romantic suspense? Mystery? Thriller? All three? :-) It sounds fabulous.

Susan, yay for getting back in the saddle! Hope the hypertension thing is under control. I know what you mean about wishing you had time to read and watch TV--with the baby, I'm parked on the couch so often, feeding her or rocking her to sleep, which sounds lovely, but after awhile I'm itchy for her to be down so I can get back to work. Or even do laundry. Will I get to read some of the manuscript? (hint...)

Think I may nap now, though. The baby's down, the book is in...and I am feeling fairly comastose.

AmyLiz, it's Famous Flower of Serving Men - all the book titles in the series are the titles of the songs that supposedly tell the story of the event that inspired the hauntings.

Still Life - hard to describe. Thumbnail, it's about a lieutenant, Cassius Chant at SFPD Homicide, his sister Leontyne (Cass and Leo), who is an artist who can walk into her own paintings, a serial killer who kills pregnant women, and who may or may not be human.

Thinking about it, that moment of near-panic is actually a moment of blankness for me. A sort of "shit, ok, NOW what, nobody home anymore" thing.