I sent off the final ms. for LAST KNOWN ADDRESS a few days ago and the exhaustion took no time at all to overtake me. I slept for nearly 11 hours each night. I took naps during the day. The final push drained me. But in a good way. I'm so proud of this book. A few nights I went on a little get-away with my sister, just overnight to a cabin in the mountains just 40 minutes away. It was great to be out of the house (I am truly grateful that I am able to work at home, but it does make it hard to get away from the office!) It was even better to be in the mountains; there really is a completely different air up there. As my friends and family (and most readers know) I am mum about a work in progress till it's done. But I was newly freed from that lip-zipping. So as my sister and I talked into the night about a huge range of subjects, I found myself periodically saying "That's in my book!" What did we talk about? What women talk about. EVERYTHING! How friendship among women is a huge force, often larger than the individual women. How siblings often end up being more different from one another than complete strangers are. And why that might be so. How we are all connected, sometimes in miraculous ways. How women support one another, even save one another, even complete strangers. How love is necessary, the food of our souls, yet is so often irrational and ill-defined. How we grow up, over and over again. How our personal spiritual quests change over the course of our lives, loop back, explode forward, settle in, then begin again. How the art of writing real letters, on real paper, with a pen--probably a lost art--can deepen and illuminate a relationship in a way email, phone and texting simply can't. And, how communication exists in unseen realms, far beyond speech and the written word.
It's all in there. I'm so excited for this novel to be out in the world. It's going to be a while yet, especially in the US. But I'll be busy.
I'll be catching up on sleep.