I’ve been lost in copyeditland for so long I’ve lost track of the days. I thought I’d rationed my time well (meaning nearly every waking hour), but this turned out to be more complicated than I had anticipated. I’ve actually been up until midnight some nights. I’m old. I’m not a night owl. This is weird. Still, one way or another, it will all be finished by Wednesday. Then I have a month to obsess about how the galleys will look.

Over lunch today, my husband commented that the book should be a movie. I thought he was talking about the mystery he was reading. But then he said I should talk to my agent about that, so I knew he meant my book. (He’s reading through the copyedits, too, now. Two sets of eyes are so much better than one.)

Hollywood would be fine. Hollywood would be great. But I see this story as a series, something for HBO or AMC or even WGN, which is running a really neat series on Los Alamos.

Anyway, in going from book to movie, or book to series, there is that issue of casting. So far, I can only visual two of the four main “characters” in my book. The one I have seen from the very beginning is Patricia Clarkson:

If I wrote scripts, I’d want to be writing for her all the time. It just so happens she would be perfect as one of my Angels of the Underground. The other good casting decision would be Allison Janney:

She is right for so many reasons. Plus there is always the chance she would sing “The Jackal” some day on the set.

So I’ve cast two out of the four Angels. That’s as far as my Hollywood fantasy goes. Anyone else have their book to movie already cast? Or is that casted?

I really liked this piece on having an author photo taken:

I don’t feel compelled to pose like a man, though. But if I were really good with photoshopping, I would find a way to have my head put on this outfit:

Maybe I’d need to add arms and legs as well. Then there would be the problem of finding the right shoes…..

Back to the drawing board.

I think I’m on day 5 now, and I’ve been through the introduction and four chapters. Even at this stage I’ve been finding (and correcting) some clunkiness in the prose. And I’ve found some passages that had to be rearranged. It’s going to be very hard to stop working on this manuscript.

However, on a lighter note, I saw the first peony blossom in the backyard: