https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV7Qz640OeM
Yep, it’s revision time again, this time for Wyoming. Scott is out of town, leaving me free to co-opt the kitchen table to dissect the manuscript. It’s a bloody process. Dead darlings all over the floor, accompanied by maniacal laughter every time I kill another one. Entire limbs amputated. Red ink everywhere. A good five (okay, closer to ten) marked-up pages to every one that sneaks through change-free—and that, only because I probably missed something.
Today, just to make things more fun, I came across a scene that I have absolutely no memory of writing. “What the hell is that?” I said, much like Steve Martin and Bill Murray in the (can it be?) 35-year-old sketch. But it worked, so it stayed it. Speaking of “absolutely” no memory: I thought I’d gotten pretty good about forbidding access to adverbs. But the damn ms. is full of them, all of them emphatic. “Absolutely” (God help me, more than once). “Completely.” “Truly.”
Absolutely embarrassing. Completely unnecessary. Truly godawful. I probably used up an entire red pen deleting such nonsense.
While my head is full of Wyoming, Dakota is out in the world, seeking a cozy bookshelf—although a nightstand or floor will do nicely, not to mention an e-reader, tablet or phone—to call its own. Readings start next week (see the schedule, here), which means I’ve got to forget about Wyoming’s Wind River region for awhile and think of things to say about North Dakota’s Bakken oil patch. Let’s just see if I can get through this without adding some lines about strippers to Wyoming, and bringing up veterans and PTSD when I talk about Dakota.
These weren’t “the publishing industry is dying and nobody can make a living writing books anymore” sort of stories that seem to pop up every couple of days. Besides, even in the best of times, not many folks made a living writing.
The Bakken has been much in the news recently, and little of it good. There was the 
Because when it’s cold, you don’t want to go outside. All of the lovely temptations that beckon you away from your laptop (or whatever your preferred writing instrument) recede. Writing—warm and cozy writing—suddenly seems like a great way to spend the day. During this recent cold snap, I’ve been unusually productive, almost enough to make me wish it would stay this cold all the time. I’ll get over that. But it’s been a great time to play catch-up after another few days on the road, this time for readings in Billings and Livingston.
From Billings, we went to Livingston for a reading at 
I felt very much the latter during our trip East during the last couple of weeks. It was a whirlwind mixture of family time and business, the latter unusually rewarding (and the former pretty great, too.) For starters, after nearly six years of representation, I finally got to meet my agent, 
I really envy people who say they don’t care about reviews; don’t even read them, in fact. I can’t even fake being one of those people. Whenever a good review for Montana came in, I danced around the room. The bad ones sent me into a fetal position. Luckily, there were more – lots more – of the former than the latter. Which created a whole new level of paranoia. What if people hated the sequel, Dakota? Well, the first review is in, and I did the happy dance. 
This coming week, Lola heads even farther east, to Philadelphia, my old stomping grounds. I’ll be doing a reading there on Wednesday night, sponsored by the 
This year, I had the particular joy of signing several copies of my novel,