Back to Granny's Jig

I finally got back to rewriting Granny's Jig last week, and it was like returning to an old friend. I had missed the characters in my long vacation from it as I wrote on other books. For a little over a week, I've been working away on it, despite other distractions.

This week I've been too busy to blog here because I was setting up a second blog (Fourth Wish Readers -- shown now under "My Blogs") in preparation for my school visit next week. The new site is mainly for the kids (or anyone who wishes they were 8-to-twelve again and has read of The Fourth Wish.) I've arranged a contest with prizes; and the newsletter from Grand Illusions, a magic shop, sends me their latest cool magic trick (which I post on the new site.)

Now, I'm settled into the long haul with Granny, and living once again in the world of 1919 Irish Catholics in Sacramento, dealing with their problems and issues and sorrows and joys. It's an odd slant on things. As I walk my dog around midtown (which is where the book occurs), it's like having double vision: I pass a present apartment house and know that in that very spot there was once a dancing school in a long-since-demolished house; I know the names of former owners of time-tested buildings, and see iron horse posts from a bygone era in front of modern homes. It's like having X-ray vision into a the past instead of through concrete.

Which reminds me why I like books so much. They are doorways into worlds, whether you read them or write them, or both. As such, they enrich life beyond measure.