Can my WIP readers look at the last few pages of Cruel Sister, s'il vous plait? So I can finalise and send it off to Nic? Need feedback on the wrapup.

BREE! JP! Back to the Kinkaid Chronicles shortly!

(doing the Has Been Good Little Writer and Now Gets to Do the Books I Want To Write dance)

What a backdrop, deb.

It's actually going to be one of the main themes: a motive for murder.

Deb, did you send out the epilogue yet? Because I don't have it.

I just re-sent. Let me know if it doesn't get there. Gah!

Received and blackflung, ma'am.

The Ig Nobel prize in literature has just been awarded:

"Literature" -- The Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, "for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters -- General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq."

Hey, I have a couple of those stories! Riveting, and such amazing characterization.

Ig Nobel prize in literature

dying

Shattered

I walked in through darkness, a feeling I couldn't identify. There was the chatter of bottles, a murmur of conversation, the hum of amplifiers.

You hadn't aged. I had, though - I thought, bloody unfair, how can you still be thirty-two when I have to be fifty-one? But there you were, hair still brown, hands still young.

I sat down opposite you. I said your name. My voice was my voice. You met my eye: Polite, well-mannered, charming as always.

You didn't know me. You didn't remember me.

I woke screaming, understanding, hating the true meaning of the word "invisibility".

Jesus. I had almost forgotten I still write columns:

There Will Be Time: Balancing objective priorities and the cruel demands of inspiration.