After a morning of reading my latest issue of The Romance Writers Report (a professional journal for romance writers published by Romance Writers of America, for those of you who might not be familiar with it) while soaking up some much-needed sun through my dining room window and then making some minor changes to this blog site, I’m getting ready to start in on my “real” work of the day — revisions to one of my current manuscripts. The goal is to get the partial of this revised manuscript back to my agent by the end of the month, which incidentally is when I’ll be leaving my day job as a magazine journalist/editor and taking a leap of faith by writing full time. I’ve been working on these revisions to the first three chapters for quite a while now, but I’m determined to make them work. It’s involved several read-throughs by my critique group, other writing buddies and my husband. It’s also involved significant cuts to make the pace move faster since it’s a suspense novel targeted toward Silhouette Bombshell, a line of female action-adventure novels in the vein of Alias and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I feel like the first two chapters are much better after all the work, and I’m still working on Ch. 3 and a list of ways I’d change the rest of the book if the editor is interested in seeing the full.
And speaking of good stories, I wanted to recommend the movie Open Range for those of you who like westerns. I love westerns, and I think they don’t make enough of them anymore. This one stars western veterans Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall along with Annette Benning and some of that beautiful western scenery that makes me want to hop in my car and just set off across states like Wyoming and Montana. So, head over to the video store, rent the DVD and immerse yourself in a time that was both simpler and more dangerous in ways. And there’s a bit of romance in there too, which always helps in my humble opinion. 
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