T minus any day

It's been a month since I went anywhere but the doctor. I feel fortunate that it's not winter, so I can occasionally lie down outside and not get cabin fever. Will I miss being pregnant? Seems impossible right now, but I'm trying to appreciate the good parts of pregnancy and bedrest: feeling the squirming and nudging inside me, having time alone...and I sit with my fingers on the keyboard trying to think of anything else but I'm stumped. A twins pregnancy is so much more intense, so much more physically disabling than my other two. I never imagined. And it's crazy, knowing that any day I'm going to have two wee bairns to look after and yet be shackled to the couch and unable to prepare. Free me!

Happily I have a major distraction: trying to finish Midnight in Austenland before babies. The countdown is almost audible, tick, tick, tick... I'm working on what may be the final draft now. This is a trimming draft, as is often the case with the final. I have a couple dozen other changes to look out for as I go through, but mostly I'm trying to weed out the unnecessary. It's amazing what I can delete when it's my first priority. Suddenly words, sentences, paragraphs, pages that had seemed essential  are now kindling. I've cut 3500 words so far. It feels great. The trick is to make sure you don't cut any essential storytelling bit or leave a scene feeling choppy. I'm grateful I had this book to work on during pregnancy and bedrest. I don't think I could've done a first draft like this, and it's not easy typing while lying on my side. (Did I mention that everything aches?) But I need a project to keep me from feeling hopeless. I would have gone crazy watching TV all day. Slowed down as I am, it's good to have work.