Not long ago, I was sitting at my computer, obsessively checking my e mail, putting off doing what I should be doing (which is writing a synopsis of my next book) and pop—up came an e mail from my editor with the mock-up of the cover of my novel. There is something disconcerting about seeing something appear so suddenly that you have been thinking about for decades. I suppose it would be like dreaming of being pregnant and then having a baby land on your kitchen table.

I was scared to press the link. What if I hated it? What if there was a stiletto on the cover? What if it was tacky? I’ve read so many cover horror stories—including one by an author who had stickers made up for his readers to put on his book so that they could cover up the original cover that he hated so much. I didn’t think I would hate the cover, because quite honestly I don’t hate anything, except for every Adam Sandler movie I’ve ever seen. But you don’t know.

Fortunately, my husband also obsessively checks my e mail (which is an issue probably best dealt with by a marriage counselor.) So he clicked on the link, called me and said, “The cover came. It looks great.”

“What does it look it?” I asked. To which he replied, “It’s pretty and there’s an apple in it.”

Still, I didn’t click on the image, because now I was concerned about the apple.

“It’s a big apple,” my husband said.

This anxiety went on for a while, and I’ll spare you the details, except to say that I did finally click on the image and my eyes immediately went to the light coming in from the corner, which I loved. And of course, the apple.

What does the apple signify? First of all, the novel takes place in The Big Apple, and then it is about a teacher and her students, and then there is an apple that figures in the novel. So I don’t know that it is the first image that I would have mentioned if you were to ask me what my book is about, but I like the redness of the apple. I can picture people saying, “I’d like that book with the apple on it.” It’s all good.

That week I took my cover into work with me and showed it to my boss, Alex Steele, at Gotham Writers’ Workshop and he looked at it very seriously and thoughtfully, as is his wont, and then he said, “Do you want my honest opinion?” (which is always a bad sign).

I said, “Of course.” (Because I lie.)

And he said, “I don’t like the apple.”

So, where do you fall on the apple divide? What do you think?

Last night I went to see the new Harry Potter movie and no, it was not the best movie I’ve ever seen. But I loved it. One of the things I respect about J.K. Rowling is that she doesn’t sugarcoat childhood. Bad things happen. Kids aren’t always safe. Love matters.  

But, that’s not my point. 

As I was watching the 3,000 previews that preceded the movie, most of them having to do with fantasy or science fiction, I was struck by the fact that each one of them looked worse than the next. Each one looked like it had cost about 200 million to make; each one was awe-inspiring and glossy. And cold. (I remarked upon this fact to my son, perhaps too loudly, and he said he hoped to God there was no one in the theater we knew.) 

The thing is that none of the other movies had an interesting character at its center, which brought me back to something I am often saying in class. It’s all about the character. Yes, I love the details about Hogwarts and the wizardry, but the reason I love Harry Potter is because I love that boy, with all his anger and insecurities. I think that writers in general, and science fiction writers in particular, often fall into the trap of thinking that if they get the details right, the story will fall into place. But I think that’s wrong. You need to start with a character.  (Unless you’re Dan Brown.) 

Tomorrow I am going to see Live Free or Die Hard, but I think I will spare my sons (and blog readers) from deconstructing that one. In the next few posts, I will unveil the covers for both the U.S. and UK versions of my book, so stay tuned.

One of the trickiest things every writer struggles with is figuring out when she is done. When should you send that short story out to the magazine, or that novel out to the agent? How good is good enough? 

For my first novel, Pitch (unpublished but not unloved), I didn’t feel as though I was ever done. I went through forty revisions. About seven a year—which adds up to a lot of years—which is why I am a late bloomer. I would still be revising that novel if The Fiction Class had not muscled its way into my imagination. And with The Fiction Class, I knew I was done because my editor said, “I’d like to see it by May 15.” Deadlines help a lot. 

But this week, “being done” went to a different level, because I got the “first pass” version of my novel. Basically, this is a stack of pages with my novel on it, except that instead of looking like the text that comes out of a printer, this looks the way the book will look when it’s published. The font is the book font and there is an ISBN number, which is exciting. My job now is to read through the pages looking for typos and small changes I’d like to make. (If I want to make big changes, such as adding in a new page, I have to pay for it. Fortunately, I do not want to make big changes.) “This will be your last chance to look at the book before publication,” my editor wrote. 

Oddly, the moment I got the package, I set it aside, which is not like me at all. I’m very organized, and yet I could not bring myself to look at the text. The days ticked by. I have to read this whole thing by July 9; instead, I went to Montauk, I watched TV, I wrote an article, I stared at the box of pages. 

Part of my problem is that I always hate to reread things I’ve written. I always cringe at the sight of my words, because I can always see things I should have done better. But I realized this morning that my main problem was that, once I did this final read-through, I would be saying good bye to my characters. I’d still be able to spend time with them, of course, but it would be like visiting children after a divorce. They won’t exactly belong to me. Other people will have opinions about them—other people may not like them.  

The fact is, I love the characters in my novel. We’ve been on a long journey together. They’ve been good company. They’re always saying new things to me; I’m not quite sure that I’m done with them.

But life doesn’t stay still, and, I do want to see this book in print and it will be hard to do, if I never give my editor the pages back. So, today I sat down at my dining room table and laid out the pages. They looked very handsome. There were a bunch of typos and I circled them in red ink. There were times when I used the same word too many times in the same paragraph, and I noted that.  I’m on page 80, but I should be done by Sunday, and then I’ll send it in. And say good bye. Fortunately, there are some new characters who have been chattering away in my mind, so I will turn my attention to them soon. 

How do you know when you’re done with something?