"Business, my darling--as usual."

Because we all need a little cat + Vivian Leigh to brighten our day.

Of course it always is business right when you were hoping for a bit of Something Else. But, my dear people, we must have business--if we didn't there would be no commerce, and if no commerce than no economy and if no economy than we'd be America and--oh dear. I had not meant to go that far.

*Ahem.*

I wanted to alert all of you to the fact that The Anne-girl is having a The First Annual Scribbles Conference on her blog and I was chosen as one of a group of writers who are "Convention Speakers." If you would like to read my post on The Vividry of Commonplace People (otherwise entitled, characterization), follow this link. And if you'd like to read my answers to some questions put to me by some of you (perhaps) you can click on the question below...

"How do you describe scenery without sounding like a travel-guide?"

Incidentally, Jenny wrote up a post that so perfectly coincided with my thoughts on A Severe Mercy that they felt one and the same, so go and read that, please. You'll not regret it.
Adieu, my friends! I am deep in the throes of historical research for Au Contraire and am finding out more and more about Corinne Garnier and Renaud Tremaine--you must forgive me my abstracted state of mind. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for a Parisian excerpt in the near future, and in the meantime I will leave you with my current favorite "toast":

"If it's half as good as the half we've known, here's Hail! to the rest of the road!"