Yesterday when I came home from leaving the house to write, my parents said, "A manuscript arrived for you while you were out."

Talk about words to strike fear into a girl's heart. *Jesus*.

It transpired, after a moment, that it was a manuscript I've agreed to read for possible cover quotage, and nothing needs to be done with it immediately, but for one panicked moment there I couldn't figure out what the *fsk* manuscript I could be receiving--HOUSE OF CARDS, for one impossibly-last-final-this-time-we-mean-it look? THE QUEEN'S BASTARD, with some hereforto unlooked-for horrifying mess in it? What the *hell*?--and dear *God* did that send me into the depths of dischair.* That funk stayed with me for hours, too. Man. That sucked!

Today, though, I'm writing the epilogue of this book. I have not actually finished the last chapter and a half, mind you, but I'm writing the epilogue, which I believe is guaranteed to make people (possibly including my editor) go AAAAAAAAAAAGH WAIT WAIT YOU CAN'T STOP THERE! Oh Yes I Can. :)

In a little while I'll be done with that, and perhaps I'll go out to coffee with irishkate, and then I'll come back and finish at least the half a chapter that I wrote this morning before becoming distracted by the epilogue, and maybe I'll write the other chapter today too. The denouement, which word I cannot pronounce, and have in fact just learned how to spell properly (I always thought it was spelled denounment, which, I'm sure you won't be surprised to read, is also how I say it), if you will.

I have, in other words, reached the Novelist's Event Horizon. The end of this book will always be a moving distance away, except I think it's in fact only a chapter and a half away, and even if it is an undefinable, constantly moving distance, the very fact that there is an end in sight is enormously relieving, and somewhat mythic in its unlikelihood. I have been working on this book since February and have rewritten it six times to get to almost-the-end. I am feeling a state of beatific calm right now, rather as though someone has removed the back of my head and replaced it with a direct connection to cerulean waves washing upon sandy shores, and possibly a soothing voice whispering promises of freedom at the end of a long, hard haul.

Also, sometime today I believe a blog interview with me will be going up at The League of Reluctant Adults. I'll make that link an actual direct one to the interview when it goes up. (There we go, the post is up: Interview with CE Murphy, Writing Dynamo (their words, not mine!))

Now I'm going to drift back to my epilogue, and my chapter, and when I return I will perhaps be done with this book.

ytd wordcount: 253,300

*as a child, I was pretending to be very sad about something, and slid further and further down in my chair, finally proclaiming, "I'm sliding into the depths of dischair!" I still like that one. :)