The last few weeks have been insanely good and bad. I participated in my first ever writer’s retreat put on by Des Moines Writer’s Workshop which I am a part of. It was a great experience AND I got my edit letter from my publisher on the opening day of the weekend giving me ample opportunity to cry and regroup and tackle the necessary edits to make my debut novel Made Safe a success.
I made some serious scheduling errors however by planning an elective surgery the following Monday that required me to take it easy for a few days. A few days of relative peace(except for a nagging cough) and then I got my second round of substantive edits which were considerably smaller in scope. So not to make it too easy on myself I promptly printed the entire manuscript and went back through it line by line with a red pen.
Then pneumonia struck my household. My three-year-old son went down first and had to be hospitalized overnight. He bounced back remarkably quickly after a round of antibiotics but then I went down as well. I was about a quarter the way through my line by line scrubbing of my manuscript when I started rounds of steroids and antibiotics putting me into all sorts of disarray. My son at this point was bouncing off the walls and my wife was managing our ten-month-old daughter and her own sudden sickness(thankfully not pneumonia) when I finally finished my edits and put them and myself to bed so to speak.
That is where Made Safe and me and my family stand facing down the holiday season and all it holds. I couldn’t be happier with the work I’ve put into the manuscript or more grateful for my loving and supportive family!