Watering the plants suddenly feels urgently important, instead of getting to work on my novel. Digging up the past so that I can write from the heart has created a fierce case of writer's block. I am frozen in my tracks, with all of this great material at my fingertips. It's time to move forward, write a sentence about the main character.

Her first memory of the people appearing in the attic is just after the Christmas Santa kidnapped her Sue-Sue doll.