Unless, of course, you've been clever and foreshadowed it all along when the reader wasn't paying attention.

See: J.K. Rowling.

you've been clever and foreshadowed it all along

That happens in the 2nd draft...and sometimes in the galley proofs.

On the ladder front:

Ed doesn't like heights. I love power tools. The gutter on Ed's house is flapping in a pleasant summer sea-breeze. As am I, standing 15 feet up on an adjustable aluminum ladder.

It's sunny and above and behind me jets are screaming around an airshow ten miles off. The grass is short and I have clumsy irrelevant bruises on my knees and I rest my tools on roof shingles with all the casual competence I can muster. Steel screws, longer than my hand, and their plastic casings in my back pocket.

I climb down and we move 8 feet to the left, to the next set of holes.

"We'll need to go back and tighten them all," says Ed.

"I'm glad you're not doing this by yourself," I say.

I climb up the ladder again, lugging the power-driver, chuckling to myself.

Ed doesn't like heights. I love power tools. The gutter on Ed's house is flapping in a pleasant summer sea-breeze. As am I, standing 15 feet up on an adjustable aluminum ladder.

This is the woman who pushed my father-in-law out of the way to put a desk together.

Have I mentioned just how wicked cool Nutty is?

I have clumsy irrelevant bruises on my knees

I love that line right there. Clumsy irrelevant bruises. I have those too, I think.

That is an amazing line. I know that chuckle.

I was planning on trying NaNoWriMo this year, but it is already nearly a week in, and I have yet to start. I haven't come up with any idea about what I want to write about either, so I am starting to think, "why bother?".

This one's a memory. It happened. A very vivid moment.

Intrusion

We're in the warehouse, me and Laura. I'm up the ladder, she's down below. I'm looking for a crate marked "Tales of Fantasy".

"Can I ask you something?" She isn't usually shy, and I know, right away, who she wants to ask about. She's starstruck, and I have a star.

She takes my silence for assent. "Is it - is he - you know - good?"

I stare down at her, stiff, disbelieving. Five years goes through me: pain, dialysis, alchoholism, body image demons, the leftovers of rheumatic fever, and the exquisite perfect passion when we do come together.

I focus my eyes. Her head is bent. She won't get an answer, and she knows it.

drabble

He's up on the ladder because he's got a longer reach. Me, knowing how the furies pursue him, am guarding the bottom.

Guarding ladders is dull. I study the ladder's footing. Rough ground: if he shifted too far at the wrong moment, he'd go over. It'd be the kind of accident where everyone would say, "Just like him, to climb a ladder in his condition." Perfect alibi material. If I waited till his balance was just a little bit off, all I'd need to do is kick the ladder, and then I'm the sympathetic widow. I'd smile tearily at Lt. Columbo, and he could say "Oh, just one more thing ..." to his heart's content, and he'd never break me--unless he found out about the life insurance and Ramon the Pool Guy--

"I'm hungry," Hubby says.

"McDonald's after this?"

"Sure."

It's best that writers' spouses don't have telepathy.

Both terrific pieces, although very different.