Free Christmas In Silver Bell Falls by Samantha Chase Page A

over.”
    “Dad got laid off the week before Christmas the next year.”
    He didn’t even bother to stop her because now she was using her fingers to count all the ways she was proving her point.
    “The next year was when he and my grandmother had that fight.  It sort of took all the merry out of everything, knowing you were permanently disowned.  But my favorite was the year we had gotten robbed the day before Christmas.  By the time I was twelve, we both agreed to throw in the towel.  Christmas was just not our thing and we simply quit fighting it and stopped celebrating.  We’ve been very happy with our choice.”
    “So it’s been…”
    “A long time,” she finished for him. 
    Knowing there was no way he was going to be able to find the right thing to say to her to change her mind, he decided to drop the subject.  For now.  But already his mind was reeling with ideas of how he could work on making her see Christmas in a new light.  He could show her some positive aspects of it, and do his best to make this particular Christmas the best one ever.
    “Okay then,” he said and reached for his wine and finished it.  “So how is the new book coming?  Have you started on it?”
    She shared with him how she had started seriously writing that afternoon and he loved how animated she got when she talked about her work.  He normally read thrillers and mysteries, but her plans for a holiday romance sounded very nice.
    “Now…wait a minute.  If you’re just writing it now, it won’t be out for Christmas, will it?”
    “The publishing world is very slow,” she said.  “This book won’t come out until next October.”
    “Wow.  That’s a long time.  Why so long?”
    “By the time I hand in the finished manuscript it has to go through a first read, normally with an associate editor.  Then they send it back to me with a round of edits, I send it back and then my editor reads it.”
    “Why doesn’t she read it first?  Wouldn’t it save time?”
    Melanie shook her head.  “She needs to read a more polished version.  It makes it easier for her to stay in the story rather than focusing on what needs to be changed.”
    He nodded.
    “So she reads it and if she wants me to change anything, we do it.  If she’s good with it, it goes off to bookmaking where it will go through another two—sometimes three—rounds of edits to polish it and make sure there are no mistakes.”
    “Mistakes?  It’s fiction.  How can there be mistakes?”
    She chuckled and reached over to finish her own wine.  “Grammatical mistakes.  Sometimes I use a word or phrase too much or the way something is worded sounds awkward.  That sort of thing.  It’s a very long process.  And during all that, the cover needs to be designed and approved.  Advanced copies go out to reviewers…it’s a lot.”
    “I had no idea.  It makes me appreciate books a little bit more.  I never gave much thought to all the work that goes into them.  I just figured the author wrote and then it got published.”
    “I wish!” she laughed.  “The editing process can be very frustrating.”
    “I can only imagine,” he said.  “Well, if I wasn’t already impressed with what you do, I definitely am now.”
    “Thank you,” she said with a smile.  Standing up, she picked up both of their glasses and took them to the kitchen.  “So I set up my office in the guest room since there was a desk in there and I plan on buckling down and getting this story written.  Now that I finally have a little direction, I think it’s going to go smoothly.”
    “And you say a typical book takes you three months?”
    She nodded.  “Although, there have been one or two times when I was able to write a book in less than a month.  There’s no set schedule or rhyme or reason.  I just write what the characters tell me.”
    “Interesting.  So what if you finish this one before the end of the three months?  Then what?”
    “I’ll send it in and