The Ice Man Cometh--and boy does his timing suck!

Everyone who lives in the Midwest thinks their state is the one who coined the phrase, 'If you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes 'cause it'll change.' But really, it's Iowa, folks. Trust me on this one. And it's never more true than at this time of year. You blink and you go from an Indian summer sweat to shivering in your thermals. And somehow, some way, Mother Nature seems to know when it would be most inconvenient or disruptive or generally most annoying to reach in her bag of weather tricks and conjur up a bit of atmospheric mischief. And she seems to be getting more extreme with each event. Hmmm. Maybe it's her way of getting back at us for global warming...?

Last week I got my revision request from my editor for my May, 2008, release FIANCE AT HER FINGERTIPS. You may remember the cover. I unveiled it here a few weeks back.

This was the third book I'd written. Since I've written seven--or is it eight--books since this one, there were 'issues' with the book that required significant rewrites. And, as every author knows, the time-frame for revisions is tight. Tummy tucker tight. As in two weeks tight. So, here I am--Christmas time and finals week in my college courses--and the early Christmas present from my editor arrives: a revision letter longer than my college term paper. And revisions must be 'in-house' within two weeks to guarantee ARCs and a Publishers Weekly review op. I slump in my chair. Pout. Email my agent and grumble. Pace the house. Kick the kids a couple times. (Just kidding. They kick back.) Then I sit myself down and give myself a pep talk. "You can do this, Kathy! Why, you're Bullet Hole Bacus, ex-state trooper, mother of multiples, educator of middle schoolers. Heck, you cuffed and stuffed people into squad cars for a living! You're fearless! A sixty-one item revision list? That's nothing. A piece of cake. You'll hardly even break a sweat.

So I email my agent that--barring a natural disaster--I'll make the revision delivery date. Come hell or high water. I imagine you can guess what happens next. One of those, if I was writing it in a book, no one would believe it scenarios. Your basic natural disaster, of course. And a mother of one, at that.

You may have heard of the 'ice event' that hit the plains states earlier this week, bringing with it falling trees, falling power lines, and massive loss of power. They say pictures paint a thousand words. I agree. Unfortunately, in this case, many of those words aren't appropriate for me to include here. Feast your eyes on Mother Nature's artistry:

These were taken from my back yard. The tree

is an apple tree that used to provide shade for my patio. Now it's sitting on my house. The ice-covered line below is a cable line and shows the general condition of my neighborhood. It's pretty much the same across the Midwest where the ice storm hit. In other words, it looks like a war zone. Limbs were cracking and falling to the ground around us. Everything was covered in ice an inch thick.

Now, the idea of a winter storm isn't all that unappealing if you can curl up indoors, warm and toasty, with a glass of hot cider and watch a DVD or read a good book. But when you have extensive revisions due--and trees are falling on your house--and suddenly the power goes off, well, you shift into panic mode. When you spy that three foot long icicle hanging so delicately from the side of the garage, all you can think about is breaking it off and hunting Mother Nature down and beating her over the head with it until it melts.

So, this is the view from my little slice of Heaven today. On the upside, we do have our power back on. The down side? I'll be burning the midnight oil to get these revisions in the mail.

Uh, did I mention that our Post Office is still without power and I'll have to skate to a nearby town to mail my revisions? Where the @#*! is Santa and his sleigh when you need them?

So, to all those folks out there slip-sliding away, I feel your pain. Hmmm. Maybe we should take a contract out on Mother Nature...

After all, we've got an A Number One Assassin right here at Killer Fiction. Sounds like a plan to me.

~Bullet Hole Bacus slip-sliding back into revision hell~