I will soon be finished with “The Bridegroom”, and I must confess, that makes me a little blue. I just hate saying good-bye to characters I’ve grown to love and admire; after all, Lydia and Gideon and I have been through thick and thin together.

Sure, there will be the revision period. There will be several more swipes through the manuscript as the publishing process gets underway, in fact. But, dern it, it won’t be quite the same. Sending in a book produces a sort of ’empty nest syndrome’ in me–it’s as if I’ve raised a crop of boisterous, beloved

I shrunk Mary Todd Lincoln this morning–on shrink plastic, of course. I’m working on a Lincoln series of ATCs, for my personal collection. Next comes the Lincoln dog–one of many but the only one I know about–and he had the imaginative name of Fido. (All the vogue in the 1860s). And heck, at least it wasn’t Rover. (I guess this rambling is where the ‘mad’ part comes in. :))

You might hear the word ‘experiment’ a lot from me, in coming days. Writing my Morning Pages (God bless you, Julia Cameron) is really stimulating some valuable new insights–for instance, if