Sunday 2/12: MBTA status

      I confess to being frustrated with Murder by the Acre. It was supposed to be finished by now and at the publisher. Instead, I'm slogging through another rewrite. I would be completely discouraged, but each rewrite is making MBTA into a better book. I can see progress as it becomes the book I originally imagined. Progress is good, but I'm ready to be finished with it. I want it done. I want to be able to stop worrying about it.
      Of course, once it's written and published, then I have to get busy with the publicity and sales. This writing business is never-ending apparently. Oh well, it's better than digging ditches.
      I think.
      No, no, it is.
      Here's a nice moment between the chief and his wife from Murder by the Acre.

Excerpt from Murder by the Acre. Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.

      After his talk with Regina, the chief had gone home for a late lunch with Maggie. He had intended to ask Sims to come along, but to his surprise, the lieutenant wasn't around the station for once. Of course, the lieutenant had enough comp time saved up to be gone for months. As the chief thought about it, he realized Sims hadn't been there a lot lately. In times past, the young man had lived down at that station. The chief was glad to see Sims had finally learned to take some time for himself.
      At the dinner table, he bought Maggie up to date on all he had learned. She listened intently, only asking a few questions to clarify things she didn't understand or that he hadn't explained clearly.
       “I keep feelin’ like all the pieces are there, but I can’t make them fit,” the chief said.
      Suddenly Maggie laughed.
      The chief looked at her.
      She colored. “I was just remembering something Drew did when he was little. What you said made me think of it.”
      “What?” the chief asked.
      “Remember when I got him one of those wooden Noah’s Ark puzzles?" Maggie asked. "He couldn't have been more than four or five."
      "I remember," the chief said, picturing his son with that little frown the boy always had when he was concentrating intently. He smiled at her. He knew what story she was going to tell.
      "Well, he was working it one morning, and I was helping him," Maggie said. "He was trying to put a piece into the wrong place, and I told him it wouldn’t fit. He looked at me, and then he went to his bedroom. Naturally I asked him what he was doing. He came back out with his red toy hammer and said, ‘I’ll make it fit.’”
      They both laughed even though he and Maggie had shared that story a hundred times before. It was how they kept Drew alive. The chief reached over and took her hand in his. She smiled at him, her eyes bright. He knew how she felt; the loss of Drew still could draw tears after all these years, but life went on anyway regardless of how anyone felt.
      "You know, Drew might have had the right idea," the chief said. "I think it’s time I started hammering on some pieces."
      Maggie smiled at him. “It’s about time.”

Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.

      See you later.