Never promise what you can’t deliver.

I said I’d post a photo of me in Star Trek costume. And I’m looking for the picture. But it may take a while longer, because I think the photo is buried somewhere in this pile of stuff. Let’s just hope it’s not under any overdue bills, or a message from the fire department that my husband is trapped down a well. The pile has grown out of control while I worked on the first draft of my new novel.

Which, finally, I’ve finished. Right on deadline. To explain: The Imminent Deadline is the point in the writing cycle when I lock myself away with my computer, a thesaurus, and any legal stimulants I can lay my hands on. I regress socially. According to the people who live with me, anyhow. Once, I came out of my office and found that my children had taped a note to the door: “Warning – she eats her young.” Another time, when the deadline loomed my husband simply threw the kids in the car and headed to Disneyland.

This time I typed like a maniac until I knew my editor was about to leave the office for the day, and pushed Send. I thrust my fists in the air, thinking, Victory! Then I pulled my hands down, thinking, Holy crap, did I spell-check?

I gaped at the screen for a minute and realized it was too late to do anything about it. I shut down the stereo. I’d been listening to my deadline playlist: Rachmaninoff, Carmina Burana… okay, I lie. Foo Fighters and the 300 soundtrack. Which may explain why my heroine, a forensic psychiatrist who investigates whether victims have been murdered or have killed themselves, spends the final third of the novel shouting “This. Is. Suicide!” Need to edit that. Then I took off my writing tiara, picked up the empty coffee mugs and scattered boxes of Junior Mints, and stumbled out of the writing bunker into the fresh air. I looked up, saw a terrifying yellow ball in the sky, and ran back inside, shrieking, “It burns, it burns!” I caught my breath. And thought: Now, where’s that Star Trek photo?

So far I’ve found my wedding album and my son’s permanent record. And a takeout order my kids phoned in to the Chinese place, which I was probably supposed to pick up last week. But I’m not done yet.