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I'm going on record with this, so if I didn't do it, I'd be ashamed, demoralized, and thoroughly transmogrified.

FEBRUARY is REWRITE month. I even get an extra day to tie up the loose ends. By Friday, February 29, 2008, my book will be as ready as I intend to get it, to submit to an agent in hopes that he/she/they will peddle it somewhere. Matter of fact, I get five extra days, counting what's left of January.

What it is, I just had a flash of what to do to fix the book. In case, a hundred years from now, someone wants to write my biography, here's what my flashes are like (not my hot flashes; that's another kettle altogether):

After I've mulled something (in this case, a story) to distraction, I get totally bored with the whole thing and am almost ready to shred it.

Then I can be playing solitaire on the computer, drinking double-strength coffee in an effort to wake up, lighting a cigarette when I've already got one burning in the a.t., and the flash comes. Or maybe I'm in the shower singing "Sourwood Mountain" or some such, and water goes down my goozle and the flash happens.

It's signaled, or accompanied, by a spark of light, like the asterisk above but sparkling, in my extreme northwest visual field, whether my eyes are open or shut. And all at once, the solution is laid out in my head like a road map.