Herself and I talked yesterday and, as I expected, she pointed the way to make Miss Birdie's book much, much better. It will involve getting rid of one character -- the niece Louisa/Myrna Lou who was taking too much away from Birdie (as I think I mentioned some time back) and a secondary plot about a present day murder . Gone, baby, gone. There was just too much happening that distracted from the main story -- Birdie.
There is still plenty going on, trust me. And the material I cut will go into a file and possibly get used in another book. I'm excited and happy, believe it or not. I hung up the phone after our conversation and went immediately to work.
How long will it take me to do this revision? I hear someone groaning and the answer is that at this moment, I'm not sure. Once I get the book rearranged and see how much I've cut, I'll have a better idea.
The down side (covering head and ducking) is that the book probably won't come out till January of 2010. But, due to the fact that I was six months behind schedule getting in the first draft . . . well, they'd already shifted me to a later pub date.
I apologize to all of you -- but I think it's going to be worth it.
