on how busy I am for them. We've also just adopted two cats, so sometimes (like right now, for example) I have to delete spurious rows of "kkkkkkkkkk", and explain why the cursor is never going to come off the screen no matter how hard they bat it with their paws. Then at 3:30, Becky and Ben plus various friends come home, and I have to switch between the careful construction of elegant yet naturalistic sentences, and settling disputes about whose turn it is on the Wii. The most productive hour of the week is usually their riding lesson -- it's cold, which encourages me to keep writing, and because it's outside of my working hours, I don't feel bad about focusing on fiction rather than website copy. Hmm. I just re-read that. "Routine" is probably a bit too dignified, isn't it? [ Jen: Sounds about right to me ;) ] How long did it take you to write the book? Did you always intend to enter it into the Scott Prize? The project began as a late-night Facebook conversation with a group of much-beloved American friends. We were talking about the cultural significance of fairy-tales, and how the stories we love as adults are informed by the stories we love as children. (We're not normally this high-falutin', by the way. Mostly we talk about zombie plans and what we're all having for dinner.) I was looking for a new project, so I offered to write everyone their own short