Starting Over

I know I said I started Simply Sara. I didn't lie. I did start. But it wasn't the kind of start that began with several paragraphs and stayed several paragraphs for a while.

Then I got all frustrated with not writing and wrote a few more paragraphs, landing me in solid 1 1/2-page territory.

Though it seemed like much more in my head.

Through all of this, people asked me if I was hard at work on my next book yet. Seriously, that's like asking a woman with a two-month-old if she's working on getting pregnant again. You've just killed yourself getting out the last one - making another doesn't sound like fun yet.

But Plain Jayne is coming out and my editor suggested that we put the first chapter of Simply Sara into the back. And I'm all for that - sample chapters are one of the few marketing techniques that actually works on me as a book buyer. So the chapter has to be done. Today.

Now I'm remembering exactly how talented at procrastination I am, as I try to write and my mind whirs and I find myself thinking of the laundry I could do or the things to look for at the library, and when is the new Swell Season CD coming out, and has my JCrew sweater shipping status indicated that it's left Salt Lake City?

I feel this experience is well illustrated by this cartoon:

So great.

But I am enjoying Simply Sara, the more I get into it. This is the book that spends time in a bookstore and art school with a character who loves clothes and another named William Blythe, named after Shakespeare and Anne's Gilbert. Throw in a Godfather-quoting bookstore employee, and I'm feeling pretty good about things.

All I have left to do is write the rest of the book.