Know about the Red Hat Society? It's from the poem "when I am old I shall wear purple." Women "of a certain age" wear purple clothing and red hats. Sounds like a hoot, but I don't think I'd do it. I do love to run in packs, but want to be an individual while I do that. Anyway, as I wrote these notes in my journal I was sitting at Union Station in Chicago. About 30 women just got off a train, all in a Red Hat Society. About 20 minutes later another train discharged even more. Must be a convention...or a sale on red hats.
Sunday 7/17 Up at 4:30 AM, but feel okay. Jan woke up long enough to say good-bye. She's a sweetie. I drove her car to the train station and she and Tim will pick it up later. I was so sweaty even though it's so early. So hot and muggy. The train left at 6:15 AM. As usual business class was great. Don't know if I slept, but I sure relaxed.
Something I forgot. My niece Jessi went to the bookstore Friday night to get the new Harry Potter book (mine was delivered to work on Saturday). She was standing in line, waiting for midnight and the book sale to begin and she chatted with a woman behind her in line. The woman kept saying, "You'd be perfect for my son, Barrett. You sound just like him." She asked Jessi for her phone number so her son could call. When Jess told the woman her last name, the lady said, "Bozarth? Are you related to Jeri Bozarth?"
Jessi said, "That's my aunt." The woman introduced herself and said she went to high school and college with me. When Jess told me I couldn't believe it. Linda H. and I hung out together when we were young. For some reason she doesn't come to the reunions so I haven't seen her in quite a while. How cool!
On the way down to Quincy I did final edits on the printer's proof of the RCY. That felt good. Then I went through POUNDS of paper that had edits on my novel dating back to 1998. That is horrific. Has it really been that long since I took my first book seriously? Then I remembered I had a critique group here in Milwaukee in 2003, but still hadn't checked out the suggestions from my group in St. Louis in '98.
I'm going to give the book one last edit and then send it off to agents. I only sent query letters once and it was in '97 or '98. I have the rejection slips. One of them was a "good" rejection. She liked my writing style and wanted to see my second book. Promising!
The book isn't the same book--it's changed significantly since the first draft was started and finished in 1995. Ten years ago. Wow.
Now that I write and edit for a living, my fun writing (murder mysteries) has just about ceased.
It's time to change that.
7/18 Monday
The photographer from the Business Journal was here today and took photos for the August 12 edition. I'm really excited about that.
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