POST-EDITING RELIEF, CAKE & TATTOOS

It is done. The send button has been pressed. The second round of edits on my Emily Dickinson novel are finito, in the bag, out of my hair. Now I just have to wait and see what my Penguin editors made of them. I do believe that the novel is now cleaner and that it makes more sense too. It's a good feeling.

Emily Dickinson's Gingerbread

Emily consumes my days and has done for well over a year. If I am not baking her cakes, I am reading another biography, or getting a tattoo inspired by her. When I started this whole thing, I was afraid. It felt audacious. Now, the nearer it gets to being a real thing - a book - the more right it feels. No matter what happens, I have connected with Emily in a profound way and that's what makes me happiest of all. I can't wait to go back to Amherst in August and breathe her air again. For now, it is sighs of relief that I met another deadline. Phew!

It's also back to promoting The Closet of Savage Mementos (not that I ever stopped!) and thinking and talking about short stories at the Dublin Writers Festival.

My Emily inspired tattoo - got it done yesterday in anticipation of pressing the send button today

LITERARY TATTOOS

If you love body art, and I do, check out Contrariwise, a site where people display their literary tattoos.

There are tattoos there featuring everyone from Saint-Exupery's Petit Prince, to quotes from Plath, ee cummings and Shakespeare.

The cute couple pictured are toting Plath and Christopher Marlowe. I lifted the photo from the Contrariwise site, so I hope they don't mind.

I have a pseudo-literary tattoo but I kind of only made the connection after the fact and it's pretty tenuous and twee. The connection, not the tattoo.

Still, a quote from some poet or other could make a very nice new tattoo, I'm thinking.

My last book was called Tattoo:Tatú of course...(plug! plug!).