smoke I’m a bit slow out of the starting gate as it’s already almost 6pm on Wednesday! I have an excuse though. Today was my husband’s last day performing in the play, Smoke On The Mountain Homecoming which he’s been doing since February and I went to see it. He’s been working as an actor and music director at The Cumberland County Playhouse. The show was wonderful and my husband was fabulous. I’m very proud of him, especially since he’s just taken up this acting thing in the last few years. He’s got a lot of natural talent and he was wonderful (and while it’s true that I’m naturally biased, the audience loved him too).

The truth is that I don’t have much to say about writing today anyway because…well…I haven’t been. I’ve been on a break. One thing that did happen while I was away is that my critique group read my latest young adult novel and they liked it! That’s good news. It’s funny, but one character kept bugging me, both while I was writing and afterwards, but he’s a very small part of the story and I just didn’t know how to make him more interesting. No one in my group seemed to have a problem with him, but after reading Donald Maass’ WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL, I wasn’t content to have such a passive character, even a minor one. Finally, just as I was finishing up my break and had been mulling it over off and on for three weeks, the solution struck me. I’m not going to tell you what it is, but I will say this, never accept something as “good enough” if you know it’s not, and make sure and take the breaks because they help you work things like this out.

How long do you let a manuscript sit after you’ve finished it?