December 21, 2008

Today I finished the second draft of the Sulphur Springs book (the title of which is now uncertain.) I'm okay with where it's headed, but I'm not excited by it and it's been harder work than usual. Frankly, I decided to write this one for the money, though I've become very fond of the 82-year-old protagonist, Violet McAdams, who returns to a childhood haunt to solve a very old murder. It's a non-gay mystery, which could make it marketable, though I'm still toying with publishing it under a woman's pseudonym. With the payment I get for most of my books, it's the love of writing and my obsession with perfecting things that keep me going. And having finished LAKE ON THE MOUNTAIN in the fall, it will take a lot for me to get excited about anything again, as I know that one will be hard for me to better.

In any case, I'm going to leave it for now and return to work on THE HONEY LOCUST. If I go to Mexico this year, for the first time in more than eight years it will not be to the Pacific coast but to the Atlantic--to the Yucatan and south-west to Chiapas--which will help with some finishing touches in my research for that book. If all goes well there, I hope to be off to Bosnia in the spring for the rest of the research.