“I never want to see you again! Go away and don’t come back!”

That was the last time we met, a few years ago. Just a week or so ago, we met again.

“How’ve you been? You know, you look pretty good. In fact, you’re downright charming. How did I ever forget that about you? I mean, maybe there’s room for improvement, but overall? You’re okay in my book.

“Uh, wait. You are my book.”

New year? Perfect for working on new material, right? Well, sort of. See, right before the holidays I got a little nibble of interest in a novel of mine that had been…how can I put this? Resting. Yeah, that’s it. Resting.

In a dusty corner of my dim attic.

Send that old thing to you? For you to read? Really? Okay, sure. I’ll just pull it out and give it a once-over, a shine, a light pass…

Wasn’t going to happen.

Just a reformatting. Okay, a quick edit. Er…did I say I’d mail this to you over the weekend? Certainly I didn’t mean mail it over a holiday weekend. Either of the holiday weekends. Surely I meant the weekend after the holidays were all over.

Uh, the Epiphany’s this weekend. Does that count?

Excuse me, back to the dusty attic. Ah-choo! Do I really need that comma? And what about this bit of dialogue…