jmacaulay

IT disasters are always with us like bad weather and taxes. You simply gotta believe your readers when they say they can't wait to read the next 'Part'. I'm hoping for 'Part the distance between Southampton and New York' (3,422 mi, or at your publishing rate about 7 years from now.

As Easy As Falling... seems analogous to the famous Japanese Pachinko machines wherein small buckshot sized balls fall vertically against a forest of obstructing pins sending each ball on a separate route careering from one pin to another - each a unique realization of the set of probabilities. So too, your lovely soul, Cathy, collides with forces which inevitably threaten and change her. The quality of her soul, her resolve to stay her academic course, and her unerringly skillful and gentle power in guiding solutions to her many problems labels her a classic literary character. Don't give her up!

Do you feel exposed because Cathy is too much you? But that's the writer's real privilege! My stuff is littered with little bits of who I would really like to be. One of my characters has strolled through my brain for over 15 years, hasn't aged a day, and can do things that - well, other men simply cannot do them because he possesses the perfect combination of attributes for his role. Still, he is never satisfied. His politician father inveighs against his career principals - "You'll never make any real money...", the women in his life are frustrated beyond their willingness to wait because his chosen plan will keep him far away with only a 50-50 chance of return. His mother frets she will not live long enough to see any grandchildren, and twists her lips when he describes a Hawaiian woman with who he has a strong affiliation. And he looks at himself in the mirror, sees the perfect male for his leadership job but also sees a phony who doubts himself even as he exhorts his men to give their all. All of those people are me, I is them all and they speak with the full range of my emotions from despicable to laudatory.

Thus, your wonderful story rolls out to help us see the possibilities in your characters, so we can learn and cherish, feel pain, exult, and fall in love with your little world. We are there with you watching, hoping and often wishing we could comfort Cathy when she melts down and escapes to the cloak room for a private weep. Please don't think of ending this... and if end it you must, promise yourself that you will apply your talents to a new tale to enchant us all again.