Your baloney may have a first name, but my book-to-be has an official title:

Make a Scene: Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time

The email I got from my editor at Writer's Digest Books was the first of the sort of emails I always wondered how it would feel to get, in which she said that they had been bouncing ideas around for the title and come up with a few. They included my original title in the list, too, of course, and gave it that nifty little sub-head. But I had just had a conversation with my friend Sheryl (of Bennington fame) two days before, and she had suggested the very first title I had given the proposal, as above. I eventually ditched it, wanting to sound more "professional," but as soon as I saw the suggestions list I knew that Make A Scene was more catchy than any of them. I suggested it, and the folks at WD loved it. So it is!

And I am now officially halfway through the 2nd Part! I only need to have the first half of the book done by November, that's 4 Parts out of a total eight (each Part has anywhere from 4-7 "sections" or chapters). I can definitely do that. Plus the two most exciting parts are coming up, character and action!

Even though right now my heart is fluttering with love for my recently completed novel, it really is starting to hit me that I'm writing an actual book, which will actually be published and available on all those places that sell actual books, like actual bookstores and actual Amazon.com.

The same goes for Creating Space, which is now in the cover design process. Oh my god. Books! Books! This is what I've been waiting for my whole life, do you see? Actual books published by real publishers that I didn't have to pay to publish me, but the other way around. It's amazing, don't you think?

Sorry. Just got excited.

JPR