Monday

Fat, blue pen in hand, I spent the day crossing out lines and words on the printed pages of my book thus far completed.

"That sounds tedious," said my friend Wes, nose-deep in inspection of the rack of ribs he'd been marinating for the past 6 hours. I was explaining that sometimes stroke survivors have a hard time with organization, and for me, as a frazzled and all-over-the-place writer, that situation has only been worsened. Blogging allows for a free-flowing rant of being, and the past nine months of book writing have also just been a gushing of words and ideas. Now that I've got some of the chapters put together in a working sort of layout, it's edit time. The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between a hot reception and a subtle, cool nod of acknowledgement in the publishing world. As a first-time book author, I want to make sure I'm not just embraced, but ravished.