I recently hammered out two short stories for an anthology that I would not have written if that anthology hadn’t existed. One of them was hard to write, and left me feeling very anxious about it. The other was an absolute joy that had me giggling madly and praising my considerable genius.

I did 8 chapters of a new novel, only to put it on hold so I could write those stories. I thought that maybe it wasn’t a story worth telling, but I’d started Chapter 9 and wanted to at least get that done. The interaction between two characters in that chapter created a wonderful moral dilemma and convinced me the book needs to be written. I’m now on to Chapter 10.

It’s nice to know that, nearly 30 years later, the writing process can continue to surprise me.