The Long and Winding Weekend

We spent most of the weekend at my mother-in-law's house on the Chesapeake Bay. Here's a picture of the private pier. The figure at the end is my middle child with the family sitting around enjoying the beautiful weather while my husband fished. My husband is a fishing fanatic. He would rather fish than just about anything else in the whole world. When he night fishes, he fishes all night long. Even going so far as to pass out on the pier with his fishing rod still glued to his hands. Luckily the fishing gods were with us and so there was a whole lot of fish being caught at the pier today. Almost 90% of them caught by my 8 year old. She seems to have caught her daddy's fishing mania, and is already outfishing her daddy! The girl is a natural.

The long weekend also meant I got to read for fun. So I engulfed in one sitting Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. Yeah, I know I'm late to this party but I loved this book! I was tearing and gasping and totally into this book. And when I was done, I thought to myself, "Self, your book is nowhere near as good as this book." And I felt blah for all of 30 minutes before I started kicking myself in the head trying to snap out of this morass of self-pity. This was actually a new experience and I don't know why it happened. I've read many great books while working on my book - some even similar to my book story - but they didn't cast me into a fit of depression. They didn't make me feel unworthy to have written a book. But why this particular book? Or was it maybe the timing? Was it because I was close to finished with my book and feeling particularly vulnerable? Nervous about actually being ready to start querying? I dont know what it was but it was such a particularly unpleasant sensation. As if someone told you your baby was butt ugly and then you realize they're indefensibly right.

It's been particularly hard because I've lately been editing off my husband's comments. I've asked him to be tough, and he is definitely being tough. He's caught alot of good changes and I know it will be so much better after his changes. But he is a slow reader, and he keeps falling asleep while reading my book. I get pages from him where the pen has leaked slowly into a pool of blue or black where he pressed the pen tip into the page as he dozed. Or where the pen leaves a large mark straight across the page where his hand slipped as he fell asleep. I keep getting these bits and pieces of my chapters every few days from him with visible signs of where he fell asleep and I keep thinking, boy I sure didn't write a page turner! Maybe I should remarket this as a cure for insomnia instead! I mean, he's only had it for all of 3 months now and he's given me back 4 chapters of a 17 chapter book. At this rate, I might be done next year.

Oh well, I guess I should be grateful that he is reading it at all.