Daughter, we didn't need your note - or a prince's visit - to tell us you'd done nothing wrong. We know the daughter we raised. We fear for your future, but never for your character. You take our love and our trust wherever you wander. Father.

No sign of pleasure greeted the announcement. The mood in the hall was leaden. My mood was livelier. Fright is livelier than lead.

Father asks frequently in his letters whether I fancy any Ayorthaian young lady or any in our acquaintance at home. I say no I suppose I'm confessing another fault: pride. I don't want him to know that I love if my affections are not returned

No music. No rituals. At home I write in my office or on the laptop in the kitchen where our puppy likes to sleep, and I love his company. But I've trained myself to be able to work anywhere, and I write on trains, planes, in automobiles (if I'm not the driver), airports, hotel rooms. I travel often. If I couldn't write wherever I was I would get little done. I also can write in short bursts. Fifteen minutes are enough to move a story forward.

I want to be with you forever and beyond.

To me, merely and pretty were words that had nothing to do with each other. Pretty went with miraculously, and merely belonged in another paragraph entirely.

If beginnings terrify you, or if you just plain don't like writing them, or if they bore you, skip 'em.