Well, the novella with which I've been fighting is almost done. Tomorrow morning, I will wake up at 3:30, as is my custom, and plug out the last thousand words.

It's been an interesting trip. With a short story, you're surprised on a regular basis by the twists and turns that your characters will throw into the mix. With a novel, you develop a full-blown relationship with your characters and are sometimes sad to see them go. (Although, I'll admit, I usually mistreat my characters so badly that by the end, I'm happy that they've escaped the thumb of such a malevolent god.)

I haven't written anything of this length before, and it's been an interesting trip. I'm happy that the characters are going to get a chance to move on now, to put their haunted pasts behind them and actually live again.

I've always said that a ghost isn't interesting. It's the reason the person sees the ghost that matters. Every ghost is an individual, and every haunting is personal.

In a thousand words, the ghosts will be brushed out of the closet.

Wouldn't it be nice if it were that easy in life?

Joseph Haines, signing off from The Edge of The Abyss.