Beano for apartment 802, fast

Sunny, mild, mini-storm expected around noon!

Great news - Maggie is fine. She chipped a bone in her wrist (?). Hard to heal, and she might limp every now and then, but so do Michael and I.

We were in Montreal yesterday and Sunday - lots of appointments. All good. Had the best time doing a part of the writing process I enjoy the most. I took my notebook over to a local cafe, ordered a bowl of cafe au lait, sat by the fire in a big leather chair, and outlined book 5.

Bliss.

I'd been making notes for months on characters, clues, red herrings, twists. Gathering quotes and ideas - some tiny little grace notes and some huge plot points. But I wanted to write a timeline...that of course goes back way before the book even begins.

I love doing that. Just closing my eyes and seeing the action, seeing specific scenes. Seeing problem areas and waiting quietly for inspiration to solve them.

There's a Second Cup in London where I love doing this. It's on the King's Road in Chelsea. Michael and I get our coffees and go upstairs and try to get a seat by the large, sash windows overlooking the flower stall opposite. And I scheme.

Planning to start book 5 on Friday.

Today's busy. Haven't been to the office in a while. Have a book endorsement I need to email, have a conference call with London publicist at 9:30 about the London Book Fair events then another one at 10:30 with the New York publicists about the March 4th launch of The Cruelest Month. Need to do a lot of paperwork too, including responding to emails.

The email from the website was down for a few days. We got it fixed but that means all the ones undelivered were suddenly delivered! If you wrote to the website last week and haven't heard back - I'm sorry! I hate knowing there's mail unanswered, especially from people kind enough to write and be supportive. Hate thinking they think I don't care. So today I'll be writing back, though it might take a while.

We were concerned when we arrived at the Montreal apartment because the week before there'd been a terrible rotten eggs smell in the building. Really noxious. We told the super about it, then went to our apartment, wading through thicker and thicker stink. Really most unpleasant. We'd determined to get to our apartment, break easy, then call with a firmed complaint. As soon as we opened our apartment it really struck. For some reason the rotten eggs seemed to be coming from US! Our apartment had indigestion.

We called down and told the super it might be 'someone on our floor' - then packed up and ran back to Sutton. Somehow it didn't seem all that unexpected that of all the apartments it would be ours that was passing gas. At least it wasn't making noises too.

When we arrived back this Sunday all was well - and forgiven apparently since no one said anything to us.

Hope you're well and we'll talk soon.