Thanks for the welcome, all.

Come be an old one with the rest of us. Take that as you read it.

It reads very much as a compliment, and reminds me of an old "story in the round" setting some of my friends created in their Creative Writing class back in high school. (I didn't take the class because until I started on my first novel, I actually had very little interest in writing. I was very much a math/science nerd with little interest in English until at some point near the end of my junior year when I did a complete flip-flop. Also, it was taught by a teacher I hated at the time, but as I've grown older realized was one of the better ones.) In any case, the setting was a sort of inter-dimensional poetry bar and the regulars were called "Old Friends". Which is probably only interesting or amusing to me.

Right. So let's hope I'm less rambling if I try to write something in earnest around here.

Alright, here goes:

Nine

Back then, Grampa meant the world to me. His smile, his laugh, the soft squeak of his chair rocking as we read a book together. When anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said I wanted to be just like Grampa. I loved most when he’d let me do grown-up things like drive his car–safely in his lap on empty country roads–or the time he helped me get a suit just like his for Aunt Virginia’s wedding.

Now the memories I treasure are from when he acted just like me. Hunkered down on the floor together over the wooden blocks we built into castles and trains and bridges. Two children with nothing but time and imagination.

(24 words over, but I'm not sure where I can tighten it up.)

You'll find it. It's one of the reasons I like drabbles. It forces you to be spare.

I don't worry too much about word counts, just try to keep as concise as possible. My drabble suddenly developed a plot that needed dealt with.

(waving at Kalshane) What Sail said; settle on in.

Allyson! I've got a nifty web page and its sole purpose is to keep people posted about the books and reviews and appearances and stuff. It's an excellent idea - muchly recommended. And BTW, if I set up a date to come down there and a thing at the LA Mystery Bookstore, when's good? Last time, you were up here, with Perkins, and I was in LA with food poisoning, signing books, alone and disconsolate.

Some excellent drabbles, yo.

I have achieved a single hardback copy of "Matty Groves." Arrived in the post today; very pretty indeed. It's possible I'm getting blase about this.

Partially xposted from Bitches, because I'm suddenly losing my enthusiasm for the WIP now that I'm almost at the ending:

Have you ever felt your enthusiasm flag for a story right as you hit the ending? I'm basically a chapter and an epilogue away from finishing the WIP, and suddenly the writing feels like going through the motions and my climax seems lame and anticlimactic. I'm pushing through--I'm not about to abandon a book this long so close to the end--and I really hope it's better than I think it is, but I hate feeling this way when I've been so passionate about the WIP up until now.

have you ever felt your enthusiasm flag for a story right as you hit the ending?

Susan asked this in Bitches, since we were both in there. I told her I'd move over here to answer long form.

I have felt this, although I'm wondering if enthusiam is the right word, at least for me. Of course, when I'm writing to deadline, which I invariably miss (bad writer, no biscuit) I'm usually chugging to the end, out of breath and cranky and wanting very much for it all to be over.

In your case, I'm going to venture to say you're having that kind of "homesickness before leaving" some people experience. You are passionate about this story and these characters, and when you're reaching the end of the book, it can be a wrench to let them go. That might be part of it, no?

Feeling like the last chapters and epilogue are an afterthought might also be because you've hit the high point of the resolution too soon, at least psychologically. My advice is to write them, let them sit for a week, and then go back and see how they read. Of course you're not going to let them go now!

In your case, I'm going to venture to say you're having that kind of "homesickness before leaving" some people experience. You are passionate about this story and these characters, and when you're reaching the end of the book, it can be a wrench to let them go. That might be part of it, no?

Definitely. I really do hate the thought of letting go of them and moving on to the next book and the next set of protagonists. I wish I could just keep writing about their lives indefinitely. They're just such lovely imaginary people. Before I wrote this story, I never understood what people meant when they talked about the "books of their hearts." I always thought whatever the current project was automatically took over. But this is different than my first book. Something about the characters and plot and everything in it just resonates with me on some soul-deep level that makes all my other story ideas, and I have plenty of them, seem like mere intellectual exercises. Hopefully that'll change once I start writing them, but I don't think all or even most of what I write from here on out is going to grab me in the same way.

Feeling like the last chapters and epilogue are an afterthought might also be because you've hit the high point of the resolution too soon, at least psychologically. My advice is to write them, let them sit for a week, and then go back and see how they read. Of course you're not going to let them go now!

I think that's there, too. In some ways it feels rushed, like I'm dismissing real sacrifices they're making to be together with handwaving, and like I haven't done enough to repair them after putting them through hell in the third quarter of the story. But that's a craft issue, so hopefully it can be fixed on editing. Though I'm still not comfortable with just writing things and planning to fix them--I'm still more used to whipping out essays or term papers in one draft than working with these big complex unwieldy things that take months to write and more months to polish and even dismantle and reassemble.

I'm still more used to whipping out essays or term papers in one draft than working with these big complex unwieldy things that take months to write and more months to polish and even dismantle and reassemble.

No shit. I'm peeved right now because I wrote two chapters of a proposal for one of Harlequin's new lines, and I *knew* the conflict wasn't right. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't change it -- if I were going to try and sell it as straight fiction, in other words. And the idea of changing everything, even just shifting things here and there and refocusing, makes me tired.

I can be a lazy writer.

SusanW: I feel this with you.The feeling that it is all just typing from here to the end.

It is a good sign, though. It signifies that the thing is done. Now, shock yourself. Turn all of your resolutions back against themselves.