Well, Wife 22 is finally done. It’s a heavyweight, clocking in at 90,000+ words. It’s the most challenging book I’ve ever written—but, it’s finished! At least the heavy lifting (the writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting) is finished; still have lots to do on the marketing front. I went to New York a few weeks ago, and met the amazing team of women at Ballantine who will help me to get Wife 22 out into the world. I couldn’t be in better hands.
Speaking of being out in the world, Wife 22 has already sold in 25 other countries, beside the U.S. and the UK. And the film rights sold to Working Title Films which I’m absolutely thrilled about because they’ve made some of my favorite movies and TV shows: Elizabeth, Atonement, Billy Elliot, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Tudors, Pride and Prejudice (the version with Keira Knightley) Bridget Jones’s Diary, My Beautiful Launderette and Fargo. Their latest, an adaptation of John Le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth) is getting rave reviews and I can’t wait to see it.
Other less exciting news: I’m working on my next novel in hopes it will keep me sane, i.e. distracted, for the next seven months before Wife 22 pubs. It feels so good to be focusing on something new. I won’t name names, but I have friends who easily move back and forth between short stories and novels, screenplays and non-fiction giving each their due simultaneously. I am not one of those people. I am stalwartly monogamous when it comes to writing. Working on more than one project at a time feels like cheating, and honestly, my brain and heart simply aren’t capable of splitting that way.
Meanwhile, here’s a hysterical, oh-so-true Shouts and Murmurs piece from the New Yorker that had me shaking my head in recognition. My son is in 8th grade now, but in some ways, not much has changed—he’s still in the mountain room!
Well, here’s the cover for Wife 22. I love it. It’s so clean and bright and especially welcome on a gray day exactly like the one we’re having here in the Bay Area today. So speaking of winter. Here are some things that help me make it through the dark, cold days of January. Collard greens (done the Southern way with red onions, chicken broth, apple cider vinegar and brown sugar), Breaking Bad Seasons 1-3 (yes, I know I’m late to the table) Satsuma tangerines, dreaming what to do on summer vacation, down vests, wearing socks to bed, the smell of wet eucalyptus and beeswax candles. 
