Last weekend, when I wrote: The editor is reading the first draft of the Sex, Life, & Hannah Summer Season, it ended up being a half truth. I had printed out the first five chapters for him, and was about to print out the last four, when I started reading through them and thought, “Damn it, I need to change this…and that.” So I got into editing mode, which is never good when you’re just trying to get a first draft out the door, and by the time my editor yelled out for the last four chapters, we realized it was time to leave for the pool party.
This book, like neither the previous two, has brought me many creative challenges…
Last night, I was re-reading Chapter 14: Friends…with Benefits and came upon the beginning of one of my favorite storylines in the SLH book series, the interesting relationship that develops between Hannah and her new boss Phillip Ferrari. It made me miss the tension of office romances…and I’ve had a few:) It also put me on a quest this morning to find that scene out of 9 1/2 Weeks, that inspired me to write this scene:
I love your books, I can’t wait for the third one, just one question, will Hannah ever get married?
It was as if a plea for hope. And one I was very familiar with. I’d heard my friends lament over this question plenty, and as I stretched into my late twenties I found myself asking it too. It was actually one of the reasons why I decided to write Sex, Life, & Hannah in the first place.
When I wrote the first draft of what was to be Sex, Life & Hannah, back in 2004, the overlying moral of the story was self love. The original Hannah, like the new Hannah, and me, was going through a slew of men; sometimes purely for pleasure, but always seemingly on a quest, to find “The One”. You know, that one person that would ultimately complete her, fulfill her, and turn her life into everything she wanted it to be. Except a light bulb goes off towards the end of that manuscript:
