Yes, that is what I’m doing today. The House of Clampitt, aka my sister Hannah and her hubby Steve, are coming to town this weekend, and my house is one step away from being a FEMA joke punchline. Break out the vacuum!

I’ve got some authorial housecleaning to do as well. Odd and ends that need tied, cleaning up, that sort of thing.

So for starters, I’d like to call everyone’s attention to the fact that Courtney Milan has moved from the Gonna Make It! section of author listings to the Authors You Should Read section, because yesterday, the lovely Ms. Milan signed a two book contract with Harlequin. So, I figure if everyone starts saving a dollar a week now, by the time her first novel, Proof By Seduction, comes out in Fall 2009, we’ll be able to buy enough books to put her on the New York Times Bestseller list.

Next on the tidying list: The Best They Could – or what used to be the second novel of the Emerson series. When two readers who’ve never met and probably don’t even know the other exists (Hi, Leah and Don!) point out the exact same flaws with my heroine, you know it’s time to scrub up and dive in. So I’ve broken the novel into two (again – I tried making it one to preserve a traditional Happily Ever After ending, but it just doesn’t work. If Janet Evanovich can have a non-traditional HEA, so can I!)

My problem is that the second half – post-Vietnam war – is still The Best They Could. But the first half? No IDEA what the title should be. I am taking suggestions NOW. Brief Plot Synopsis: Lily Emerson leaves the family farm to become a nurse and meets Bobby Hofstetter. He’s perfect for her, but Lily’s violent ex makes things difficult. Once he’s mysteriously dispatched, Lily and Bobby grow closer. When she accidentally gets pregnant, they get married, but she loses the baby (Did I mention my stuff can be dark?). Bobby’s love saves her, and it seems like they’ll get that happily ever after – until the epilogue, when Lily tells her mother she’s joining Bobby in Vietnam (cue segue into the next novel).

What the heck am I going to call this thing?

This is the 12th time I’ve rewritten the opening. I am TIRED of rewriting this book. It’s got such potential to be a real powerhouse, and once it gets going, it goes pretty smoothly. But openings are one of my big weaknesses, and this one is pushing me to the edge. Everyone – Mary, my co-worker, my sister Leah, my mom, and ESPECIALLY my hubby – is sick unto DEATH of hearing about these people. I need to finish and move on. Unless, of course, any lovely agents or editors want to talk edits. In that case, I’ll happily get cracking on new rewrites with a smile on my face.

Next on the to-do list: Does anyone out there speak Lakota? Know someone who speaks Lakota with a computer? I need some translation, and I’ve received no replies to the emails I’ve sent. A Part of Her is essentially done, except for the translation, and I need to make sure I get it right. I lived in Columbus, Ohio, for two years (Trust me, this fits). Columbus is ground zero for Native American Indian protests of Columbus Day (something about the 25 ft. bronze statue of Columbus in front of City Hall, frequently with a replica of one of his ships docked 75 ft away on the river, makes for good protesting P.R.). I have seen angry Native Americans in person. I do not want Native Americans to be angry at me. So, if ANYONE can help out here, much obliged.

Finally, I’m going to the Fall Harvest Workshop on Sept. 27th in Bloomington, Minn. Now this is going to be something close to a family thing (Hubby and toddler will spend the day at the Mall of America whilst I attempt to schmooze with Donald Maass without sticking my foot in my mouth), so I can’t offer to share rooms or anything, but is anyone else going? I get less worked up when I know there’ll be a familiar face in the crowd. And I’m already getting nervous about what to wear. But I’m going shopping next week in St. Louis. I may buy a suit. Or not.

Well, I can’t put off scrubbing bathroom fixtures much longer. Sometimes, though, it’s good to clean house. Perhaps I’ll leave myself a mint on my pillow.

And I know I’m dating myself by quoting a Boys II Men song. If you remember the somewhat surreal video with suave, soulful R&B black guys (I liked the one with the cane) crooning to a TV set with Michael Landon’s image on it, then you may just be as old as I am.

But that’s not the point.

The point is, that almost exactly 6 weeks after my Muse took hold of my brain, I have finished A Part of Her, and sent it out to the first stage reader (aka Mom).

And I’m done with the Emersons. I’m going to miss them.

True, they aren’t really going away. I’m still waiting to hear from the editor on Marrying the Emersons. Any time she wants to call me up and talk about whatever rewrites she wants me to do, that would be super. And I’m still getting chunks of The Best They Could back from people (reviews still good). Tweaking will occur just as soon as I finish this blog. A Part hasn’t even gotten any outside opinions. I could still wind up in South Dakota before October if Mom thinks the setting is weak (yes, another road trip, this time with a toddler in tow).

And let’s not forget that I’ve queried The Best to exactly one agent. I’m going to be spending a great deal of time over the next month writing queries and polishing synopses, and getting on a first name basis with the Post Office people again. (They give the toddler suckers. Good times had by all!)

So the Emersons aren’t going away. But there is nothing else I can do to my people. Nothing else I want to do to them. Everyone has suffered enough. It’s time for them all to live happily ever after, free of interference from the cruel Authorial Mom.

And I have to admit, I’m a little bummed by this semi-ending. I’ve spent a lot of time in three generations of Emersons’ heads. As of this weekend, it’s been exactly one year since I had the idea of Rose and Billy’s tangled love story. 80+ years of family history in 365 days.

I believe the technical phrase is “at loose ends.”

Oh, I have plans. I have a lot of reading to catch up on. Querying and such. Editing Pauline Friday’s book, How to Be a Spinster in 29 Years. Working with some new friends to launch a local critique group. I’ll still be here blogging, too, while tweaking the website. And all the normal Mom stuff that goes with late summer – the aforementioned road trips, baseball games, back to school shopping, etc.

I have a few other ideas bouncing around my head for what comes next – everything from completely, soul-crushingly depressing widow story to another Native American (Navajo this time) story to a light contemporary romance about cooking.

But my Muse is pooped. She needs a break. And I need not to wake up at 4 having conversations in my head. I know that, when I’m ready, my Muse will grab me by the collar and refuse to let go until I know who’s doing what.

So this isn’t really goodbye to the Emersons, like you never really say goodbye when your mom leaves after a three day visit. Not goodbye. Just see you later.

Hopefully in print.

Boy, I hope everyone had as nice a Independence weekend as I did, minus the scorching, blistering sunburn. Hope no one else got one of those. You know that airplane rule? The one about making sure you put on your mask first before helping your child? Same rule applies to sunscreen. At least the toddler isn’t burned, but still . . .

On to business.

The readers are coming back with opinions and corrections on The Best They Could (Book Two in the Emerson Series), and reviews are good. Very good (although my dad would say, “Never say very. Waste of a word. If you’re going to say very, you might as well just say damn.) In the not too distant future, I’ll begin querying it in earnest.

Today’s topic: Philanthropic Reading.

Oprah and Bill Gates get a lot of press for their philanthropic givings (heck, Oprah even had her own show about it.) In our house, we try to give in little ways. The hubby and I bagged sand during the flood of ’08, and gave to the Red Cross to make up for what we couldn’t do. We help out when my sister Leah Runs for a Cure. We sponsor a child in the Philippines through Children’s International.

We could do more. We’ve got a nice, comfortable life in a world where too many people go hungry or cold in the winter or die of heat stroke in the summer. The inequities of the world are unavoidable, and I’m not naive to think that I can save the world (Heck, Oprah can’t even save the world, and she tries!).

But we could to more. So I’m going to advocate Philanthropic Reading.

As you may have gathered, I write what tends to be serious, even depressing stuff (See “Everyone Suffers, Everyone Wins”). Each book in the Emerson series deals with some horrible set of traumas that my people have to survive. The good news is that they do survive, and they do get to live happily ever after.

But first they suffer. In Marrying the Emersons, the first book in the series, Rose, my heroine, is stuck in a verbally abusive marriage and then savagely assaulted. In The Best They Could, Lily, Rose’s daughter, is date-raped, and her husband Bobby suffers unspeakable horrors as a POW during the Vietnam war. And A Part of Her, the final book, with Mary Beth, Lily’s daughter? Something is out there killing people while an evil man strips the land for uranium.

So here is my Philanthropic Reading plan. For Marrying the Emersons, I plan to donate either a lump sum or percentage of the profits to Quanada, our local Rape Crisis center. For The Best They Could, I’m going do the same for an organization (to be named later) that works with homeless veterans (because, sadly, those numbers are only increasing). And for A Part of Her, I’m going to donate to the Lakota tribe. I’m thinking about the Link Center, which helps pay for heat for elderly members of the tribe.

Now, I admit, part of this is selfish. I have to sell books to have the extra money to donate. Perhaps more people would be willing to plunk down the money for a book if they knew they were helping a pet cause. I sell more books, make a larger donation, and also make more money.

But this is my public pledge that some of those profits – profits on my end, not the publishers – will go to worthy causes. It would be nice if a publisher wanted to jump on board with that, maybe put the cause on the back of the book, but I can’t control that. Heck, let’s not forget that I’m not even published yet. Right now, this is all a nice plan and not much more.

But I have faith that one day, I’ll see my books in print. And when I do, I’ll share the wealth.

I can’t shut my brain off!

Okay, here’s what’s happening (literally). Last Thursday, I was diligently working away on The Best They Could, and I typed a new scene where Mary Beth – granddaughter of Rose and Billy (heroine and hero of Marrying the Emersons), daughter of Lily and Bobby (heroine and hero of The Best They Could) – confronts her Uncle Hank (from the short story “The Girl with the Coal-Black Eyes”) for being a drunken failure.

Okay, if you read last week’s blog, that depressing scenario sounds normal.

So anyway, I’m writing along, and I really hadn’t been able to figure out Mary Beth. She’s a few years older than I am, but I really hadn’t gotten past her as a seven year old. I know what her childhood was like, and I know she grows up to be a vet. I knew she could have a story, but for the life of me, I couldn’t see what it was.

And suddenly, I knew who she was. Everything gelled in the scene where she defends her mom from a guy she’s not really sure she believes is her uncle with a Mr. Microphone. Everything made perfect sense. And as a result, I spent the rest of the evening talking like a mouthy 12 year old to my hubby. He didn’t seem to appreciate that literary breakthrough too much.

And then I went to bed and had the weirdest freaking dream (not uncommon for me, but Don Cheadle in a hotel maiming a pregnant giraffe? Too weird). And in the dream, I was Mary Beth trying to save the giraffe. Thank God the alarm clock went off, because I’m not sure the giraffe was going to make it.

And somehow, this weirdness was my brain kicking into overdrive. OVERDRIVE. Within two hours of waking up, I figured out what Mary Beth’s story is. The whole plot exploded from my mind like Athena springing forth from Zeus’s noggin. And I can’t make it stop! I keep babbling about buffalo and knives and cattle! I swear, I don’t know who’s going to strangle me first – my hubby or my lovely coworker!!

And the odd thing (as if the rest of the story wasn’t odd enough) is that it didn’t make sense. Why, I wondered for two days, is the albino child key? (Told you it didn’t make sense!) Why does the noseless cowboy defend her? (Oh, yes, you read that right. He’s a whole ‘nother can of worms. I’ll explain later.)

So I started writing. I got 68 pages down in less than 48 hours of semi-normal working, cooking, cleaning, and putting a toddler in time-out.

And it still didn’t make sense, except that I knew it all worked.

So I started doing some research, trying to shore up this brand new novel, and discovered that my brain remembers more than I give it credit for. Everything I’d envisioned was there – the tribe, the albino, the noseless cowboy, the great-great-grandmother – and it all made sense. It all dovetailed perfectly.

The albino is the key. The noseless cowboy is sworn to defend her. And Mary Beth is going back to the land of her ancestors to confront her demons, real and imagined.

A Part of Her is there. I just have to write it all down.

First, let me say I am NOT obsessing about the editor. Nope. Not me. It’s no big deal that I finally figured out Google Analytics and saw that I had two page views from New York, even though I don’t know anyone there. Nope. Not a big deal, no obsessing. Not here.

If you buy that . . .

But let’s move on to business.

As I may have mentioned, I write women’s literary fiction with strong romantic elements (I think). My mom reads all my stuff (quickly, too) and occasionally I get comments like, “Are you sure you had to kill off Henrietta?” and “Did everyone have to die, honey? Isn’t that a little dark?” And don’t forget, “Are you sure he did that during the war? Did he have to get captured?”

And the answer is always, Yes, they all have to die, and yes, they all have to suffer. Everyone suffers. Everyone. No single character goes unscathed or unmarred. I am a mean, cruel authorial god who takes my people right up to the breaking point, then, just when they think everything’s okay, pushed them over the edge.

If you’ve read the short stories at www.sarahmanderson.com, you’ll know what I mean. There are no happy endings in the short stories. Not even the hope of a happy ending.

It’s not all bad. The short stories have some great sex scenes (there has to be something fun, after all) and they do have a happy resolution in the novels. The novels are quite lengthy, and all sorts of bad things happen to my people, but in the end, everyone comes out stronger and everyone gets a happily-ever-after. The unhappy endings for the short stories are at least resolved and put to rest in the novels. (Which, I know, sucks right now, because you may be wondering how there can be a happy ending when Frank did what he did, and how there ever be a happy ending for Hank after Saigon falls. Wait for the novels. Please.)

The odd thing is, I am not a morose or unhappy person. A little OCD, maybe, but in the grand scheme of things, I have never been pushed to the edge, never given up hope. Sure there have been trials, but mostly I look back and see that what was once so important, now isn’t as much.

In fact, people who know me, even people who just met me, generally comment how funny I am. (Tangent alert: And I always say, you should meet my sisters, I’m the boring one. And no one ever believes me, ever. My hubby didn’t until he met the rest of my family, and then even he had to agree that, compared with the crackling, sensual humor of my drama queen sister Leah and the goofy-yet-urbane, quirky storytelling of the natural comic sister Hannah, I am almost staid by comparison. Almost.)

And that humor almost never comes through in my writing. It peeks out occasionally, but my people are too busy having their souls crushed by something horrid to be too awfully funny.

When I write my women’s literary fiction, I tap into a dark, fearful place in my soul, the part that knows that, just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t watching you. The part that spends the three days before my hubby flies to a business trip imagining the thousands of terrible things that would keep him from coming home to me and our son. The part that can’t watch the evening news because every deranged act, every accident, every natural outcropping of a society working through the bugs becomes real and personal. (That’s right, I don’t watch news. Haven’t since I got pregnant almost four years ago, when the world got a lot scarier for me.)

When I kill a character or drive him into insanity, I’m giving that dark part an outlet, a place to go. I’ve been ruining my people’s lives and putting them back together for almost a year now, throwing the worst at them and then letting them rebuild, one painful day at a time.

And I think I’m happier for it. I pour out my fear and pain onto a page instead of letting it fester inside. When I give my people a way to go on, I give myself a way to go on, even though nothing bad has happened to me.

And I pray it never does.