erika, received and danced about. Will curl up at the week's end, which ought to be about the time I finally get over the damned jet lag.

Liese, damn. Powerful stuff.

For Teppy's challenge, a true memory:

Gratefully Not Dead, Mid-Seventies

The hole in the plywood planking is humongous. I was standing no more than ten feet away when it made its appearance, but Bobby, his signature Ibanez slung over his shoulder and his ponytail flapping, was a whole lot closer.

Now there's a break in the soundcheck, as well as a break in the stage. We cluster around the gaping wooden wound, staring down at the smashed B12 cabinet below. It missed me by ten feet, and Bobby by maybe two. The B12 weighs, conservative guess, 90 pounds.

"Close one," says Owsley, and his hand moves, not quite crossing himself.

Wow, I can't tell you how gratifying that is...and by gratifying, I might mean...

erika, is it OK for me to put it in standard novel manuscript format, for reading? And do you want editing, suggestions, etc?

Yeah...I don't do it a. Because I never expect anything I write to go anywhere. b. Because formatting anything is always a struggle and a half. Crush Guy and I have sort of a bet riding on this...sadly I don't mean porn. But I did rather expect him to read it and turn away in disgust and that didn't happen, so... That might be an embarrassing interview one day, talking to Diane Sawyer or somebody and she says "How did you write this book?"
" To get my friend off my ass about my fanfic habit...and well, I don't know that I should be this honest..."
And Diane gives me her "I'm just your sorority sister," face.

So I say "Yeah, and I thought he was hot." Auspicious, eh?

Could be worse - at least it isn't Katie Couric or Connie Chung.

My Word format is set to manuscript default, so when I download yours, that'll be easy.

Because looking down, for me, means prayer. And because I may not believe in God, but I sure believe in family:

"Dinner!" call my parents, and we trundle into the kitchen. Allison dances, daddy teases, and Kenneth pesters, while I try to finish my chapter. The Griswold parade marches around the counter, filling plates with food and glasses with tea, finally settling in seats, to wait. Mom, always the slow-moving caboose, is finally ready, and sits.

A signal, and a hush, and we all bow our heads.

"Dear Lord, bless this food and this day as we are gathered here together. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, Amen."

The ritual complete, we pick up our forks and tuck in.

Nova, a nice gentle scene, there. One thing, though: "parents" is a plural, "calls" is a singular. "Dinner!" call my parents. Two people performing the action.

Good point. Edited. Originally I formulated it '"Dinner!" calls my mom' and then changed it because, you know, my parents both cook in our modern family. But then, I might have screwed that one up anyway - sometimes subject-verb agreement eats my soul.

For me it's the whole tense thing. They were always my single biggest writing problem. (That one's on purpose.)

Anyone else go through that, "I'm writing a book? Who am I fucking kidding?"

It must be my awe of writers, people who make books happen. I feel unworthy, in some way. Or like everyone who says "no, you can totally do this" are just playing a mean joke on me. Does this feeling go away? Just me then?