Further on stackability of cats

I was just sorting myself out downstairs, getting ready to go to the library, and there was this strange scritching sound behind me; so I looked around, and there was Baz perched on top of a flat piece of cardboard and scritching at it. The end he sat on was flat to the carpet, the other end stuck up in the air, there was clearly something underneath it propping it up; I said, "You haven't got Mac underneath that, have you? ... No, clearly you haven't," I went on, "because if you did he'd be fighting back, because he's evil..."

And at that precise moment Mac emerged from beneath the table where I stood, and deliberately slithered beneath that flap of cardboard, so that of course Barry biffed at it, and of course Mac fought back, and there was fighting and biting and chasing and chaos. Because he's evil.

It's ... not very far to Chicago

Okay. What I say is, 12.5K is plenty enough words to give someone(s) an idea, whether or not they think a novel is going to work.

When those someones are my agents, what I say further is, they don't need a synopsis. They can take my novel-building on trust.

So. Here I sit, with not very far at all to [Chica]go - probably more than 106 words, alas, but hey. I'm going to make a ritual of it anyway.

I've got half a bottle of wine, a full bowl of fresh crevettes (fried in olive oil with chilli, garlic & salt, and so fresh I'm going to eat them heads'n'shells'n'all - which I didn't know was actually possible till I went to Taiwan, for we English are a conservative race), it's dark and I'm wearing - well, my regular glasses, actually.

Nevertheless.

*hits it*