Kristin Wolden Nitz

I’m not surprised that September 1 was the last time I managed to pull together a blog post. My husband and I took a trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons from September 10 to the 17.  That took prep time. Five or six days after our return, I was off to Mackinac Island for a writers’ conference.  I know that you’ll all pity me deeply when I say that I had to get there a day early and leave a day late to help my friend get editors to the conference and bring Donna Jo Napoli back to the airport.  More on all that later.

But to put this busyness in context, I received a wonderfully detailed email from my agent, the fabulous Erin Murphy, on September 8th.  I finally managed to sit down at the computer and start working at the revisions last Saturday on Mackinac Island.  But I think that the two weeks of meditation on her comments as I hiked through narrow canyons, studied prismatic springs, waited for Old Faithful to go off, and repeatedly mowed the lawn were an extremely valuable part of the process.

Plus, I needed to work on world-building.  That’s not something to do in brief spurts, at least not for me since I needed to hold the changes and clarifications in my head. I kept going on my Italian chase novel in those quick half-hours.  Today will be another sustained effort.