Karen Heenan

Because things tend to happen at once - to test us, I'm sure - I had company last week. My writing friend, Marian Thorpe, came to visit from Canada on Wednesday and stayed through Saturday. I pushed my work hours from 9-12 and we got together at lunch and started talking and kept going until one or both of us ran out of energy. Usually both, usually simultaneously, usually well after dinnertime.

Points to my very patient husband for listening to the two of us through several meals, talking about our stories and our characters and what might or might not happen next. We know each other's characters well enough that we can talk about them, which is very helpful until it gets confusing, as in when Marian showed up on Saturday and said, "I dreamed about Pearl last night." Since Pearl is my character, that's not helpful for her. Nor is it helpful for me, since she couldn't actually remember what she dreamed.

But anyway, a short message this week because I'm trying to catch up to myself. Work is still throwing me off a bit, but so is trying to catch up with all the things we worked out over the last few days.