And gradually his memory slipped a little, as memories do, even those with so much love attached to them; as if there is an unconscious healing process within the mind which mends up in spite of our desperate determination never to forget.

Truly God was good, to make man so blind.

That's the purpose of old age... To give us a breathing space before we die, in which to see why we did what we did.

I want to know what they look like, their height, and colouring, physique and speech pattens.

It's no fun to be a bluestocking in a family of jockstraps.

Old age is an ordeal, of flesh and mind. Of winding down, of slowing down, of dying cells. It's accepting the loss of physical attractiveness and replacing it with the power and wisdom that can only come with old age.

Once I've got the first draft down on paper then I do five or six more drafts, the last two of which will be polishing drafts. The ones in between will flesh out the characters and maybe I'll check my research.