The formula seems to be 30s something woman whining about diamond-shoes-too-tight problems.

Have you tried Marian Keyes, Deena? I find she touches on some serious issues without resorting to the tired formulas. The Brits are better about allowing darker subject matter and encouraging the use of black humor. Plus Keyes is just superb-- probably why she's outlasted a lot of the other chick lit authors.

I don't think I have. I'll add her to the list, thanks.

Time to go make dinner...

I think I'm hitting the "this sucks, why am I doing this?" part of writing that Barb hit yesterday.

I do desperately want to finish chapter three, and I think I can get there. But I am freaking out in self-doubt.

You can get there. Really, really.

I think I'm hitting the "this sucks, why am I doing this?" part of writing that Barb hit yesterday.

Um, nope... can't have it yet. Still busy with it. You might as well go ahead and finish chapter three.

The blush challenge is now closed.

The new challenge is leather.

Okey doke-- reworked proposal off to Agent Kate and here's hoping she likes it.

Crossables crossed, Barb. Each and every one. Really hard to type, now.

Thanks, Bev. If she doesn't like it, I'm going to take it as a sign from the universe that I should finally bag romance and stick to women's fiction.

Or laundry.

Some words from my detective, for the Leather challenge.(I'm slipping, truly. No fannish references to horsehide being warmer. Or chaps.)

The wallet doesn’t look like much now, brown and scuffed and stretched at the bottom from all of the things my father used to carry in it. I imagine that I can still see the glint from his badge inside it, but I think that is just my imagination running away with me. I can tell from the distinctive leather smell that it was intended to last and was chosen(probably by my mother) for some occasion that my memory doesn’t record. He’s been gone for a while now; I can’t remember where we last had dinner or what the last gift he bought me was, although when he died so unexpectedly, I thought I’d hold onto everything that made me think of him. I have a career path like his, this leather wallet, and several guidebooks on baseball, which he tried and failed to teach me, marked with his handwriting that made every word a barely-broken line. Kind of like mine, even without the brain damage. Most days it feels like enough.