As hoped, the espresso has helped. A lot.

Yesterday I went into campus, found nine new sources for my thesis chapter (NONE of which are owned by my university...but that's another issue...) and wrote the first two pages of Chapter Twenty-One of Queen of Thorns. (As well as dog-walking, dish-washing, cleaning, etc., etc.)

It's amazing the way Writing Mind works. Now that I'm over 2/3 of the way finished and building up to the climax of my novel, ideas are constantly flooding my brain. New short stories! Flash fiction! Amazing new novels! Anything to keep me from finishing this novel!

I'm being good, so far, and strict with myself. I'm not writing anything else (well, any other fiction, that is) until I finish this novel! It needs to be done!

But I just know that as soon as I do finish, my brain is going to feel empty and drained, and the great new ideas will be long-gone...or, if I write them down know as a memory-aid, they'll seem dry and boring. This, at least, is the pattern.

Oh well. In the meantime, I'm super-excited about going to Neil Gaiman's reading in downtown Leeds tonight. With luck, it should inspire lots of new ideas--but ideas for this novel, Right Now, and not for alluring alternative projects. I've done enough of that...and although I'm grateful for the new short stories I've written in the past few months, it's time to focus. Not something I do well, by nature.

Last night as we stepped off the bus, I stumbled and fell into a thorn-bush overhanging the sidewalk. I gasped and jumped back. My hand was bleeding in eight different places.

"Damned thorn creatures," I mumbled, rubbing my hand.

"Love, it's only because your new novel is giving away their secrets to the world," Patrick said, hugging me. "You just have to expect it and defend yourself until it's finished and safely out of your hands."

My hand still stings. I'd better finish that novel fast!