Week of 4 March 2002

Like last week, I spent this week editing Nights in Rodanthe. I had finished going through my first edits the week before, and the next step was to send the novel up to my agent to see what she thinks. She read it last week (Feb 21-22), (Loved it! She thinks it might be her favorite!) and she sent me back her suggested line edits. I spent a few days early this week doing those edits and making my own changes as well, so I could get it to my editor at Warner Books by the weekend. My editor is now reading the draft for the first time (over the weekend of March 2-3). From there, my editor usually takes one or two weeks to get a copy back to me with additional suggestions. So now, I wait, to see what she has to say. It's important when editing to get a little distance between yourself and the manuscript at times, so I won't touch or think of about the novel until I hear from her.

I also saw the cover for the first time. It's a beautiful cover; I think it's the best cover so far. Because no one at the publishing house has read the novel, they had to design the cover without reading it, so I spent some time the week before telling the designers the plot of the book, settings, example. It's amazing what they came up with.

And finally, I went up to Notre Dame to watch an indoor track meet with my older sons. It brought back a lot of good memories, and I'd like to thank Coach Joe Piane for his hospitality.

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