Just in time for the holidays...

Hubby put the Christmas lights up

and

I mailed off Hepzibah to my agent at last.

I expect to do some more revisions before we send her out into the publishing world, but I feel a little bit like I've just sent my baby to her first day of Kindergarten. Except I couldn't cry. I did laugh aloud.

There's a little story behind all this. It begins
Once upon a time, H was my first novel ever, and I worked on it non-stop for about a year, all the while attending conferences and reading like a mad-woman, but I never found a beginning I liked,

so,

after about 35 *&%$#! beginnings,

I got sick of it and set it aside for a couple of years. Meanwhile, I wrote a second novel--the novel which got me an agent--and began three others.

I learned a lot in those three years of writing and reading every day and studying novel-writing. When I picked H up again, I realized she needed a complete overhaul, poor girl. I kept getting her out and tinkering, and then I'd get distracted and pick up one of my other projects, and she got a little lost in the shuffle. Because it's so much easier to do something new and get it basically right the first time, than to fix what seems like a big, fat mess.

I finally got down to business when my friend, Jamie, started a One-Page-a-Day blog where we commit to write at least one page every day and then report on the blog if we've done it or not and make our sorry excuses if we fail. I decided then to force myself to work on H every single day, whether I felt like it or not and set aside my other projects for awhile. Thanks, Jamie. What a great idea. If you're a writer (or would like to be) and want to join us, feel free to check out the rules (for example, you have to prove you're not an axe-murderer, and it really helps if you know one of us) on the blog at http://onepageadaygroup.blogspot.com/.

Once I got my head in the story again, it took off, and I decided to finish her up for National Novel-Writing Month. Which I did last Saturday, and sent her off to the agency that night (er, Sunday morning, I guess) at 1:30 am.

The end.

And we lived happily ever after. For a few days, anyway.

So,

for Thanksgiving, one of the things I'm thankful for is that Hepzibah is out of my hands for the moment, after nagging at me for three years to finish her up. I really like her. I do. I'm just glad to get her out the door for a bit.

My family is thankful, as well.
I cooked dinner yesterday for the first time in I-can't-remember how long.
I have time to think about Christmas presents and such things.
No more witch girl hovering over my head and haunting me: finish me up, finish me up.

A couple of other random thankfulnesses:

I'm thankful for my sisters.
And my poor, neglected children and husband. I'll be seeing more of you now.
And the amazing mountains by my house.
And the smell of cinnamon.
For fresh thyme still growing in the garden.
For happy moments
And music.

Happy Thanksgiving, all! I'm baking rolls--real, homemade, five-hour butter rolls. Mmm.