I have suffered these past ten days from "Blog Neglect."  I apologize to you kindly souls who have reported back to me with appreciation for whatever words of "wisdom" I have set forth in my corner of Blogland.

Yes, I have been writing–steadily–mainly editing.  About ten years ago I completed the manuscript of a 70,000-word novel about a woman whose widowhood, being kidnapped in her own car, her having a romantic entanglement, dealing with 'boomerang" kids, etc. have formed the primary action in the story.  A month ago I attended a talk offered by an active agent for women's fiction and decided to get back to work on that novel–stored safely in my computer files.  It has required lots of editing, re-editing, and re-editing.  I am now at the stage of having printed a copy of every chapter, holding the sheets in my lap with my feet up while I ink-in needed changes not caught when I did the "first" edit on the computer. 

I didn't believe that I could change the last names of my characters, put events out of sequence, and leave out an entire chapter describing a key event that needed to be described to make the plot hold together. I find that–over the years of working periodically on this story,  I changed the makes of automobiles belonging to my characters, and their occupations.  Lots still to be done.  I will report on progress, and send up a grand halleluia that will be recorded here after I type "The End."  I have worked on this daily except for the time spent in my writer workshops and time to eat and sleep.