Another big day on Wednesday

Tonight I will go home. I will do the normal "home" things with my family. I will kiss P hello, tell him that I missed him. I will read Boy Wonder's school folder, see what "color" day he had. (Blue is great. Yellow is not.) I will ask how Boo did. Did he sleep? Did he make "mad baby" noises all day? We'll figure out dinner. I'll watch 4 episodes of Spongebob while P teaches jiu-jitsu. Then we'll figure out dinner. (Thinking take out, if you really want to know...)

The boys will have baths. They'll eat dinner. They'll destroy the house with their toys and pull things out that they'll never even play with. I'll throw them in bed and pick up after them. I'll tell the dog to relax, that P will be home any minute. I'll look at myself in the mirror and say something to the effect of "What the hell???"

And then...

I'll freak out.

See, I have another chance to pitch a manuscript tommorow morning with a Harlequin editor in New York.

6 a.m. to be exact...

The manuscript in question is a little ditty I like to call "Shelter from the Storm." It was fun to write. Not much fun to revise, and absolutely NONE fun to try to compartmentalize into cutesy sound bites for tomorrow's pitch session. I have lots of work to do tonight, perfecting my "this is why you should request a partial from me" spiel.

And that's what I'll be doing into the wee small hours of the morning. I'll attempt to interview myself and write out all the answers to the questions Ms. Editor may, or may not, ask. I'll spend a few hours tonight hanging out with my characters...the strong, silent type hero. He's a small-town sheriff with a nasty ex wife who up and broke his heart. (Nasty ex wife!)

There's our scarred, traumatized heroine. She's got an angry red scar from her eyebrow down her cheek--a souvenier from an attack by a serial killer she survived. She bought a bakery from her great aunt and started over in her old hometown. She's quiet and can't sleep well, but she's doing alright. Until...

Dun Dun DUNNNNN...

And that, dear Reader, is what makes Romantic Suspense, well, romantic suspense. (Which Harlequin Intrigue is.)

This is the second romantic suspense I've worked on, and I find they are actually kind of fun and easier to write. It's much easier to fill up pages when people are hacking at your characters with kitchen knifes or shooting at them from speeding SUVs. It's much harder to fill 50k words of two characters just plain ol' falling in love and stuff. Way harder.

So that's it. Tomorrow. Another day. Another chance to pitch the ol' romance novel. Will post any good news...