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Day 16: Gratitude with Liz

A Sum of Its Parts

Hello! It’s Liz, hijacking Nan’s blog for today. It’s a glorious day in Michigan. The condo we’re in is walking distance from…everything. We’ve had great food, great ice cream, and a glass or two of wine, so it was good we walked.

The walk by the musical fountain in Grand Haven

Although I don’t have the heart link with Michigan that Nan has, I do love it here. The World Wranglers have been trash talking the past few days about the Dog Days Kristi’s suffering in Ohio (I’m not sure she likes us anymore 😊), but we’re in mellow weather here and it is good not only for the disposition but for the soul as well.

Our work here this week is important to the romance writer’s life. Nan’s putting some flowers in a few bare spots in her almost-ready-for-her-editor manuscript and I’m in the last chapter of this year’s Christmas Town story, which will be out in February. I think I spend as much time on the last chapter as I did the three before it put together, but I need for the close to be satisfying. A story is so very much more than the sum of its parts.

After those things are done, it will be fun time. She’ll work on the fourth Flaherty Brother story and I’ll…well, find a new place. A new beginning. As I’ve said before, just often enough to be annoying, the only page better than the last one is the first one.

As lovely as advances and royalties are, there are other payments for writing books that have incomparable value. Just a few of them are:

  • The blank page. As terrifying as it is, we get to fill it up. And if what we fill it up with is dreck, we get to hit “delete,” and do it all over again.
  • Writing “The End.” I don’t really write it anymore, but the end is there anyway, and it is a reward that rates right up there with bourbon butter pecan ice cream.
  • Having people be interested in what you do.
  • Taking trips with your BFF.
  • Brainstorming with said BFF, who NEVER tells you you’re an idiot who should give it up.
  • Reading things aloud to the person you share your life with and having him say it’s excellent. Absolutely. Whether he heard you or not.
  • Watching a couple walk down the sidewalk together and by the time they get to the corner, you’ve given them a story. And names. And a puppy.
  • More parts. Putting them all together until they are a jagged but complete sum.
  • The blank page. Yeah, I know I said it once, but it bears repeating.

Thanks for stopping by. Stop in and see Nan tomorrow—she’ll be glad to see you!