So I have this new book out.  It’s called Here Today, Gone to Maui.  As far as my books go – this is my fourth – it was the most fun I ever had thinking up an idea.  I mean, I was in Maui!  And I got this idea!  And everything kind of fell into place!  And I was in Maui! 

Here’s what happened.  My husband in son were snorkeling far out in the water.  I was on the beach and lost sight of them.  So I thought:  Ohmigod, are they okay?  And then, like any good wife and mother, I followed that thought with:  Hey!  What if a woman was on vacation with her boyfriend, and she saw him go snorkeling — or maybe scuba diving — and he just never came back?  The synapses started firing, and the plot began to build in my mind.  And, oh, yeah — my husband and son were fine.  (Do not judge.  I am doing this for my art, people!  My art!)

On the writing end, it was by far the least fun I’ve ever had writing a book.  A month and a half before my deadline, I did a read-through, thinking I was ready to launch into revisions, and I realized that the last 200 pages … what is the word I’m looking for?  Oh, yeah: sucked.  An extension was out of the question; I had two books scheduled right after it.  So, after walking around in a panic and whining to my husband for a couple of days, I just did it: I rewrote the entire second half of the book.  I worked days, nights, weekends.  I even worked while cooking dinner, zipping back and forth between the stove and my laptop whenever I came up with a good line.  I emailed the completed manuscript to my editor four hours before the deadline.  She loved it and was thrilled to see how few revisions it required.

I’ve read a lot of author interviews, and I’m amazed at how many authors talk about writing as this kind of feverish dream.  They have THIS IDEA and then THEY CAN’T THINK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE and so they START WRITING AND KEEP GOING UNTIL THEY’RE DONE.  A few months go by, and they’ve got a finished manuscript.

I’ve never worked that way.  When I’m lucky, I come up with a great idea that occupies me for a few heady, day-dreamy days.  I’ll walk around in a fog and stuff just comes to me from some usually inaccessible recesses of my brain, and it’s not like work at all.  It’s more like being in love or taking super-powered prescription narcotics (I’m prone to bronchitis).   I put as much of my thoughts down on paper as possible: characters, scenes, dialogues, plot arc – whatever comes to mind.  Eventually, though, the inspiration fog lifts and I have to do something that can only be called work.  I am pure tortoise, assigning myself weekly minimums (typically fifteen to twenty pages) and just pushing through to the end.

But now I know what it’s like to be a hare.  There’s something astonishing to it, I must admit.  When I re-read the manuscript a few months later, the words felt surprisingly fresh — almost like someone else had written them.  And the book has some of the funniest scenes I’ve ever written.  How can something that was so torturous make anyone laugh?

Right now I’m working on my sixth book.  I’m a bit behind schedule, which means I need to get tougher on myself: four pages a day until I’ve hit the twenty-page per week minimum.  Maybe even five pages a day.  I am glad to know that I’ve got an inner hare for emergencies, but I’m putting my inner tortoise back in charge.   It’s the only way I can sustain any kind of career — not to mention my sanity.