I'm glad. Isn't it great when you hit one of those days, or even a whole stretch of your existence, when you just cruise along, no particular worries, everything going pretty well? How wonderful to be able to drop phrases like same-old, just routine, and nothing new. At times like those, problems are in perspective, drama queens don't draw you in, you remember to exercise, you say no to dessert, and you speak to your kids and co-workers in thoughtful and measured tones. Life is in balance. Your outlook is sunny. If that describes you right now, stop working on your manuscript immediately. You could be in terrible danger. Why? You may be seeing the world and its woes in a way that is calm and rational. Nothing could be worse, at least for your fiction. Effective storytelling doesn't minimize problems, it exaggerates them. To the passionate novelist, everything isn't smaller than it really is—everything is bigger. The world of a story is a hyperreality. In a passionately told tale, characters are larger than life, what's happening matters profoundly, the outcome is important in the extreme, and even the words on the page have a DayGlo fluorescence.
