The book deal thing went slooooooooooow and then–zip!–done in a day. The slow part was submitting. Some interest, some suggestions, some passes. I did a few small requested revisions. Then Kate Miciak at Bantam got her hands on it. She wanted to schedule a phone call. I paced and panicked and jumped up and down. Despite the five hour time difference between England and New York, it was set for…

Fall is lame here. I don’t know if it’s that the temperature change in England is too gradual or what, but the leaves don’t turn colors. They just turn brown. It’s inadequate. I’m used to the gaudy variety of American northeast autumns. Here’s a picture of one of the prettiest ones I ever experienced: This is Edna St. Vincent Millay‘s old tennis court in Austerlitz, NY. Her 600-acres there are…

I used to be a night person. Ideas percolated all day, while I was in school or at work. Finally, at night, I was free to imagine and write. I’d often stay up quite late. Sometimes, in the case of deadlines, all night. I’m turning 40 this year. Dude, I can’t pull that off any more. By evening my brain is used up. I can do some decent brainstorming, but…

I was in Berlin when I got “The Phone Call.” For those of you who aren’t aspiring to publication, The Phone Call is when an agent calls to offer representation. (Or an editor calls to offer publication.) The Phone Call is a wonderful, stressful, don’t-ruin-it-by-saying-something-stupid freakout for a writer. It’s a chance for the agent to check if you’re high-maintenance, and a chance for you to find out how the…

My recurring stress dream is always the same: The cast of my college production of Nicholas Nickleby has been called together to reprise our roles. We haven’t rehearsed, or even been given scripts to brush up with. We’re supposed to just show up and still remember everything. What makes this especially nightmarish is that Nicholas Nickleby is no ordinary 90-minute play. It’s a lavish adaptation of Dickens’ thick novel of…

I got a laptop so I could hide from the baby. My husband’s job involves talking on the phone with the California office, which is eight hours behind us. So he works afternoons and evenings, and looks after our boys in the morning. The boys have a great time, playing Lego and programming robots. (And a somewhat annoyed time practicing instruments and French pronuciation.) At the time we started using…

I once heard a second-hand story about an undergrad at my friend’s college who had married young, been widowed young, and was supported by her husband’s estate so long as she was studying full-time at college. I can’t say for sure I remember the details exactly right, or that the story was 100% true to begin with, but as I recall this was to be her third bachelor’s degree. The…