After a day and a half of cleaning, moving furniture, yard work, and dodging a puzzled dog, my family arrived and the whirlwind began. I was perhaps a touch optimistic in assuming I could be a good host to my dear sister while disappearing every day to participate in the Clarion West Write-a-thon (#writeathon). Plus dieting.

But after much shuffling and some hard choices, I not only ate three slices of pizza, I settled the names of my characters. I finally understand them and their relationship to each other. They’ve been waiting for me: an insignificant fellow, someone I needed for one paragraph to do one thing, suddenly has a recurring role. He fits.

Now comes the easy part: the writing. As the psychiatrist Dr. Spielvogel said in the punchline to Portnoy’s Complaint, “So. Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?”