OK, so I mostly took the weekend off from all things writing-related. I went three mornings without setting my alarm; my average getting-out-of-bed time was still 5:40 or so. More important to me was that I put more time and effort into Katrina-recovery matters than into anything manuscript-related.

An apartment complex near my neighborhood was collecting donations for a half-dozen refugee families that were moving in, and for dozens of other families at other complexes throughout the city. I made sure that all the local folks in my e-mail address book knew about it, and I put in a few hours in the middle of the day Sunday to help process the donations.

The one Day-Glo bit that I worked on was the author’s note, which my editor and I had neglected until, oh, the end of the day on Friday. She’s trying to get the manuscript to copyediting this week, so I started pulling together a few thoughts in longhand Saturday night, then squeaked out a draft this morning. I’ll try to get that polished off first thing tomorrow (along with the last two minor editorial issues with the manuscript itself).

To come up with the right words and ideas for the author’s note, I sifted through all my research this morning, and I’ve begun revisiting the monster 6,200-word manuscript that I first began submitting nearly four years ago. Why did I write this story, I’m still asking myself. What did I want to say that, for whatever reason, didn’t end up in the final manuscript? What do I think that readers would care to know about the process?

Those should be easy to answer in the next 11 hours.