Sadly, my deadline of October 31 has been missed and I have entered that terrifying stage of "I absolutely hate this book."

Oh, but the kids totally loved the toys last night. Our next-door neighbours report that most kids informed them that we were handing out toys, expecting them to try and top that with a bicycle or PSP.

The best was the young girl who was so excited by the slinky toy I gave her that she dropped her bag of treats to start playing with it right away.

Luckily her mother was there to retrieve the bag from the porch. ;)

I have about 20 pages to go, which I should be able to polish off by tomorrow. Luckily I booked my meeting with the betas on Saturday, so I have some time to...stress out some more.

And the shiny new ideas kept on coming up to the door last night with the trick-or-treaters. It was quite distressing, especially when I returned to the computer at 8:00 p.m. to do come more edits - and completely forgot what I was supposed to be working on.

My father called to speak to the DH about something technical and IT-related last night, and he casually mentioned my self-imposed deadline as I was waiting for the DH to pick up the phone. I responded with something I thought was appropriate...for a sailor.

Seriously though, I do like this gathering of 80,000 words on the whole. Some parts I'd just rather not think about right now.

Demented Michelle had fretted about her voice ages ago, and I too feel her pain. Sometimes you want your words to be able to cross into other genres and styles as easily as slipping on a fabulous new coat. Only for writers like her and I, it doesn't work that way.

I've tried to write stuff that's serious and filled with mind-altering truths. Yeah, it was totally lame. But I learned the lesson: don't write annual reports.

So tonight is going to be a late one. Thankfully I can sleep in tomorrow.

Still want to feel spooked out? Check out this story by Mike.