There’s been some great, great news. Michelle Diener has signed with an agent! You can read about it here. I was lucky enough to read her book, and I knew she’d find an agent who would fall in love with it. I know she’ll find an editor who will love it, too. It’s one of the best books I’ve read.

This morning I finished what I hope is my last revision of my wip, typing in the revisions from the hard copy, and then reading it one more time. One more chance to improve the scenes and to catch mistakes. I caught plenty of both. I ended up with major rewrites on at least three scenes.

I’ve been sending my CP pages as I finish them. She’s critiqued a lot already and has about 100 pages to go. This week I’ll type in changes from her critiques. So far she hasn’t found anything major. By next week I should be sending this baby out.

My non-writing news is that my husband finished tiling the walls around our bathtub. It seems like when you do something like that, there’s one unplanned problem after another. It reminds me of writing a book. In spite of the problems — or maybe because of them — the tiled walls turned out great. He still has to do the countertop. We picked out big marble tiles, and I love what we chose. We bought an extra box, in case something goes wrong.

My last blog here was about clutter, so I’ll talk about a few clutter words to look for in books:

I see phrases like these all the time. “She began to run.” It’s stronger and more urgent if you say “She ran.” The “began to” is clutter.

Can you think of any clutter words that bother you? Last week I read an interview with an editor, and she said sentences starting with an “ing” word bother her. What are your writing peeves? (Or would that be reading peeves? Argh. I can’t turn my editor off!)

I cleaned out our linen closet last week — from necessity. We emptied it as part of the remodeling we’re doing. I knew we had a lot of crap in it, but we ended up keeping about 1/3 of the stuff. When I put the keeper stuff on the shelves, it looked so good not to have everything crammed together. And it felt even better. (Besides that, I have a ton of rags. Win-win.)

Last week I also went through a revision of my wip. There were a couple scenes I cut drastically or kept a few lines and rewrote the rest. And there were witty lines and wonderful insights that I hate, hate, hate to cut. But they’re clutter, not necessary, not moving the story forward. Though I don’t have a rag space for them, I put them in a Word Doc named “Bits and pieces.” This gives me peace of mind that I can find them if need be. (Which I rarely do.) And it leaves me free to admire my clutter-free ms.

Except I can’t. Because now I’m working on what I hope is the LAST revision of GG before I start sending it out. And I’m adding layers instead of cutting.

If you’re reading this on Tuesday, I’m talking about the layers at Magical Musings. If it’s Wednesday, I’m at Pink Fuzzy Slippers blogging about Chapter Five from Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. This chapter is about heightening larger-than-life characters, and it’s a great one.

Have you de-cluttered lately? In your WIP or your living area?

I’m back from the WisRWA conference. Liz Kreger and I picked up Karin Tabke from the airport on Thursday, a day before the conference began. Liz drove. We had a fab time. Even though I didn’t sleep much, I wasn’t tired all weekend. I was too stimulated from talking to all the other writers. I love writers!

Karin gave an awesome workshop on It’s Just Business. If you can book her for a conference, you’ll be happy you did. Liz had to leave early on Sunday, and another Liz drove us back, Liz Lincoln. More fun. Then I come home to a dog who had the runs all over the living room carpet. (Why does she have to do it on the carpet and not the tiled kitchen floor?) My cat missed me so much, she won’t leave me alone.

I want to do it again, but it’s back to work — if my cat lets me type.

I’m motivated! On the way to the conference, Liz and I brainstormed my next book. (Karin slept through mos tof the two-hour drive to Green Bay.) I thought of a great twist. Now I’m eager to start the book. First I need to revise and polish my last book.

So what are you doing with your book? Writing, polishing, revising, plotting, simmering?

Cynthia Eden’s MIDNIGHT’S MASTER, the final book in her Midnight trilogy, will be released on June 30th. To celebrate, she has a big hunking contest with a ton of prizes. You could win:

First place: $100 gift card to Barnes and Noble
Second place: $50 gift card to Barnes and Noble
Third place: $25 gift card to Barnes and Noble
Fourth place: ARC of BELONG TO THE NIGHT
Fifth place: Any autographed Cynthia Eden book you’d like

Plus she’s having guest authors on her blog with more prizes to help her celebrate. You can find out more here.

That’s Susan Doyle in the semi-finals on Britain’s Got Talent. If they disable the embedded code (as they did with the first one), you can find it on You Tube here. It’s 7.38 minutes, but worth watching. I got teary eyed again. I loved the judge’s comments. The male judge whose name I don’t know (not Simon Cowell) said, “…the world was going through a pretty tough time and was looking for a bit of hope and inspiration and along came Susan Doyle to provide it.” Oh yes!

My good news is I finished the revisions of my wip! It’s in the hands (or computer) of my CP, and I’m working on the synopsis. I had an idea for my next book, but as I was commenting on Spyscribbler’s blog this morning, a new idea came to me. I’m more excited about this one than the other. Love it when that happens.

Karin Tabke is guest blogging at Magical Musings today. Stop off and say hi!

Margie Lawson is giving a body language test on Barbara Vey’s Publishers Weekly blog. Take it and you can see if you can spot when someone is telling a lie. I got 10 wrong out of 20. I bookmarked this page. I know I’ll use some of the information in future books.

All these people inspire me: Susan Doyle, Spy, Karin Tabke, and Margie Lawson. Who inspires you?