It may look like I’m a madwoman. That I’ve finally lost it. That I have thrown the pages of my manuscript into the air and started chopping them up while cackling.

Now the madwoman part might be true. But what you see here are different scenes that have been sliced and diced.

Why?

Sometimes I get real excited about a story line.

I write the whole story line, all at once. Then another story line, all at once. And another. Then they have to be printed out, cut up and re – organized to form a full plot that is not a total and complete wreck.

For example, with The Language of Sisters, out September 1, I wrote most of the full story line of the family’s escape from the Soviet Union before I moved on.

Another story line I wrote pretty much straight through was the adopted brother’s life and where he came from and why he had nightmares about butterflies and wooden ducks and blood.

A third story line was Toni’s relationship with Le Stud on the dock where she lives in a yellow tugboat.

To be quite honest, though, sometimes I don’t want to write a different story line, which is my excuse for writing straight through.

The story line I SHOULD be working on is too tough and makes me feel like whining.

Or, I am confused and baffled by my own story. Sometimes I am sick of my book and sick of myself. Sometimes I want to go and be a butterfly collector in the Amazon and quit being a writer.

But the pages you see now? That’s the book in progress.

Congratulations to me -I now have a bunch of crap.

Yes, the book is crap at this point. It’s terrible. It is. I’m not being modest. It’s a first draft and I know what yuck is and there it is.

People ask why I edit my books 12 times.

I will tell you this: It is because the book is an embarrassment before then. It’s a tangled mess. It’s sad. The book is sad to be that bad and that makes it mad. (See? I can rhyme!!)

I would not let you read it even if you threatened me with a back lashing by rattlesnake.

If I am taken off by a flying dragon, my family has explicit directions to burn the first through seventh drafts of my book in progress rather than let it see the light of day or your sweet eyes.

So back to work I go on this fresh hell.

I’m writing about a secret keeping grandma, a chef who throws chickens, a cook book, and two little girls. The book is out in September, 2017.

There will be a lot of cackling between scenes.