Manuscripts are coming in!!!

Hello all! I'm writing to say how exciting it is to see manuscripts coming in. Some are up to the max in length, some are short. All are wildly different, which is how it should be. I find that oddly reassuring. Knowing again that all writer's voices are different, and all are valuable, worth being heard.

When they come in, I put in computer hard drive file and then into a back up system. Next the name of author is deleted and the manuscript is forwarded to Emily after I have given it an identifying number. We will begin reading after the last day of submissions.

It's prehaps so exciting to see the manuscripts come in because it gives me energy, always, to see other people writing and daring to submit.

The look into other minds, other truths, this is a gift for sure.

My own writing goes well. My Julie is falling in love. I had not planned that. She is just doing it. It's an unexpected bonus to enjoy being part of the writing when she and Steve meet on the back steps to talk, flirt, argue, laugh, and increasingly become intimate with one another. No hot sex yet, just the move toward knowing each other, and wonderful, wonderful to write. (I guess the hot sex will be wonderful to write also if it happens, which is up to them.)

One other discovery. I have passed the point when I realized this book is going to end one day. I will finish it. That realization (seems so prosaic and logical, yes?) made me so sad, almost sad enough to cry. I don't want to let these people go. Then I remembered the rewriting I know must be done, and believe at a minimum, another year is needed on this novel. So I relaxed and put aside my sadness for the moment.

So , welcome to December and the coming 2006 which maybe will be a slightly saner world than 2005.

And know there is this real live person (me!!!!!!!!) sitting here enjoying seeing your work come in.

Peace. Claire