So, other than having my husband read over a paragraph of an accident report and make sure I'm interpreting it the correct way in terms of weight and balance in my book, I AM SENDING THIS SUCKER BACK TO MY EDITOR!

I'm sure I've spent way too long on the editorial notes and I'm sure the average author turns and burns this sucker around inside of a week but, well, even though supposedly my manuscript was not marked up too much I was still worried about every bit and piece. A lot. Probably way too much. But my fear over dates being wrong or quotes being wrong or something technical being explained incorrectly made me more than a bit obsessive compulsive about it all. I'm still beating my deadline to get it back (I was determined to beat the deadline) but I'm sure I lingered far too long on sections about long dead pilots that most of the world has likely never read about.

Oh who cares. I'm sending it in tomorrow and I'm delighted to be letting it go.

Because of all this writing type work I have not been reading much which has made all the posts and tweets about BEA madness fall a bit flat for me. I have no desire to get suitcase full of ARCs. None. It's not that I don't want to read or don't know what to read or am in some sort of reading slump, I'm just bloody tired of words. (Except those in the three books I'm reading for Booklist that are due by the 5th.) Happily, my July column is about the creative life which means I'm currently looking through OPEN STUDIOS by Lotta Jansdotter and ARTWORK: Seeing Inside the Creative Process which means I'm also looking at my own office and becoming ill at the sheer messiness of it all but still...

...it's lovely to see pretty spaces and peek inside the brains of the smart and creative people.

(This is especially lovely when your own brain has turned to mush.)

My goals for this week are modest: finish my June column (reviews for fun summer reading), tackle my desk (this is a total excavation project), scan in a couple of my great grandmother's pictures (can't wait to share them) and read many many magazines.

I'm going to read VOGUE and I'm not going to feel guilty about it.

I will be back to the western book by June because I have a plan for it and I'm not scared of it and I'm actually looking forward to it but right now, at this very moment, I don't want to write anything. Not for this moment. Words will happen again soon but right now pictures are all I want.