Return to Castasia

“Enjoy your book,” Ter says, leaving the room to let me read a bit before I go to sleep.

What’s so strange about this, you ask?

I am reading my own book.

Re-reading, actually. I was inspired to revisit The Healing after a work colleague asked if I would take a look at the first few chapters of a fantasy novel she’s writing. I have great respect for this person, not only because she rocks at her finance desk job, but because she has published a bunch of books through real contracts with established publishers. She already identifies me as a capable employee. To have her recognize me as a fellow wordsmith—or at least someone who knows something about writing—was pretty darned cool.

You don’t entrust your fledgling child to just anyone.

After I sent her my review, she dropped by my office for our first real writer-to-writer conversation. We’ve scratched the subject on occasion, but because I respect her practice of keeping her writer’s life separate from her work life, we had never gotten into the meat of it. My effort with her manuscript proved more than she had hoped for—not knowing what I was doing, I did a complete line edit rather than a general overview—and our relationship seems to have shifted in a more comfortable direction as a result.

At the same time, I decided to take another look at The Healing, if for nothing else but to remind myself of how my own fantasy story started. Of course I’d write it differently now … but not by much. My style has evolved in the decade-plus since I finished the first draft. The story itself is good. The characters are complex and colourful. The magic is present but not overpowering—I recall GRRM saying that magic is like anchovies on a pizza: too much and the whole pie is ruined. Best of all, elements are present in The Healing that remained consistent and actually propelled the series forward in subsequent novels. I should be proud of that sucker; it’s a pretty good read, if not a little fatty in places. It’s actually fun to see that I could have cut a line or a paragraph, or even a scene, to make the flow move faster—then again, I always write what I want to read. In 2003, it seems I wanted to read something thick and sticky with detail. Nowadays, not so much.

And that’s okay. Like Treason before it, The Healing deserves better than two of five, so I’ll give it …

King of Kings

It’s been years since I read a novel by Stephen King. His On Writing is a staple on my bookshelf, but despite his name perennially displayed in the New Releases section at the local bookstore, the last novel I read was Gerald’s Game in 1993, and even then, I did not finish it. Too scary.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I still believe The Stand is his best work. Cal Leandros even gives it an honourable mention in Roadkill!

The man doesn’t need a book release to get my attention, however. I have long admired him for his honesty and, in particular, his sense of humour. The guy’s a hoot.

Little did I know that he and George R.R. Martin have been friends for decades, since before GRRM struck gold with A Game of Thrones (the book, not the TV series). So imagine my delight on finding a video of the two old pals having an onstage conversation when Steve’s recent book tour brought him to New Mexico. The bulk of the talk was stuff I already knew, but I always appreciate hearing how the professionals operate. One of King’s genre policies is this: “Aim for terror. If you can’t reach terror, aim for horror. If horror eludes you, settle for the gross-out.”

The other thing he said that had me rolling on the floor was during an elaboration of a storyline. He mentioned a villain’s recent diagnosis of pancreatic cancer as motivation for a diabolical act and the audience gasped as one. He looked at them and scolded, “It’s written on page nine, for Chrissakes! Spoilers? Spoilers? There’s no such thing as a spoiler. You can’t ‘spoil’ a book; people read books to have an experience, so who cares?”

Or words to that effect.

He’s right. If he was wrong, I’d only read a book once. How else can I explain my passion for revisiting The Night Circus or GRRM’s series, or Station Eleven or the Cal Leandros novels; or for multiple viewings of Orphan Black or The Newsroom, for that matter? Knowing what happens ahead of time is clearly no deterrent. It’s the joy of reconnecting with beloved characters that brings me back time and again.

I recognize that some folks prefer the slow reveal. I admit, I prefer it myself, but knowing before I saw The Empire Strikes Back that Luke Skywalker’s dad was Darth Vader did not prevent me from paying to see the movie. If you really care, you won’t care. Stephen King certainly doesn’t.

Long live the King.

GRRM

I’m a third of the way through A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. This means I’ve read the first of the three stories about Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg, and am about to embark on the second tale of their adventures—but first, I had to run for The World of Ice and Fire to read up on the politics of the time. The Targaryen kings still ruled Westeros and since a bunch of royals showed up at the tourney in The Hedge Knight, I was compelled to study up and get the names straight.

It’s hard to keep track of so many similarly sounding names (Aemon, Aegon, Aerion, Daemon, Daeron, etc.), hence my determination to get the characters straight. GRRM has said that he’d been told writers should not use names that begin with the same letter more than once in a story, which he felt restricted any cast of characters to a maximum of twenty-six. He added something along the lines of his readers being smart enough to tell their Targaryens apart. Not to mention English royal history, where Williams, Edwards, Richards and Henrys appear in nearly every generation. So he cheerfully uses names more than once, and mixes it up with derivatives of those names until you practically need a map to tell who’s who.

I’m having a ball.

Not only are the Dunk and Egg stories built on solid ground, they flow from one scene to the next, they carry the reader with ease, the imagery is bright and the voices clearly heard, and best of all, they stay with you when you’re not reading. That’s why I consulted the Westerosi Bible to get a better grip on the historic players—book in hand or book elsewhere, in some part of my psyche, I am there.

What a joy to be reminded of why I am a fan. Twenty years ago, the cover art on a paperback copy of A Game of Thrones caught my eye. I fell into the first pages while standing in the bookshop. I devoured the book itself, reading faster and faster, revelling in the writing as much as in the plot. Glorious, glorious, every page was thick and juicy and alive with colour and sound and texture. Sure, I thought it would look fab on film … but just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Season Five has taught me so. Unfortunately, I let my dismay with the TV series weaken my perception of the creator.

Dunk and Egg have reminded me of something vitally important.

GRRM is a masterful writer.

A Song of Ice and Fire was as inspiring to me as The Vampire Chronicles. Even as I read the first volume all those years ago, I was thinking, Could I write something like this? Did I dare to try?

You bet I did.

It started with a book. The written word. One writer speaking to one reader, one page at a time. And that is how I mean for it to stay.

Bibliography XI

“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” – George R.R. Martin

Live from Westeros!

I’m done with the TV series, but a book about Westeros is always welcome. Last Christmas, it was The World of Ice and Fire, which also won my award for “Pretentious Coffee Table Book of the Year”. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms houses the stories of Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg, which take place well ahead of A Song of Ice and Fire. I read the first one in an anthology some years ago and loved it. GRRM has written more, obviously, and I think I read a second Dunk-and-Egg tale in another anthology, so when I heard that our heroes were getting their own collection in one cover, I was on it … but I did not tell Ter about it and it was soon forgotten in a landslide of other priorities.

As a writer, I completely understand the concept of spinoff. It differs from a series in that the serial storyline is broken. Create a world for one set of characters and eventually, if it’s done right, a host of other inhabitants will clamour to have their stories told. When (if) the original project gets out of hand, you can still enjoy being there by focusing on lesser known people or a different period in that world’s history. As a reader, I admit to being somewhat disappointed when a side project pops out, especially if I’m waiting for the next volume in a larger series, and I don’t usually invest in side projects. I guess I see them as indulgences for the author. I certainly write them as such, with no eye to anything other than completing a work for the sheer fun of it. Calling on familiar characters in a familiar environment helps with the “fun” part.

Writing a series is hard work. I can imagine that the success of GoT has catapulted GRRM into a bit of a quandary, too. Maybe he doesn’t want to finish the novels. Maybe it’s no fun anymore. Maybe he’s afraid to disappoint or fall short or be unduly influenced by what happens next on the TV series. In his position, I would check all of the above. Evidence of distraction/avoidance is everywhere, most notably in the absence of the sixth novel.

Or, in my own personal case, the seventh.

At any rate, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will entertain and inspire me, and serve as a reminder of why I first became a fan. GRRM was a darn good writer before the galactic hoopla happened. My hope is that his standards remain something to which someone like me can aspire.

De-Throned

Warning:

·         spoiler alert

·         content may be unsuitable for some readers

Proceed at your own peril.

I’ve done something I thought I would never, ever do.

I’ve cancelled my pre-order for Game of Thrones 2015.

It’s a small comfort to note that GRRM had a severely reduced role in the production of season five, and the plotlines veered wildly from those in the books, so I can say this without betraying my loyalty to the original storyteller. Season five was absolutely no fun to watch. It was unnecessarily graphic in the sex and violence department—a constant through the first four seasons, come to that—but I have simply run out of excuses to defend the series. Almost every episode had me wondering why I was tuning in when most of what I got was pornographic, misogynistic, borderline criminal crap.

I have a pretty high tolerance for sex, and I understand that we as a society have grown so numb that more extreme visuals are required to engage an audience when it comes to blood and gore. I hate it, but I get it. I myself prize clever dialogue over vivid pictures. The banter between Tyrion and Varys was gold, but also like gold, those few nuggets were buried so deep in the dirt as to have taken up perhaps ten minutes of ten hours. Instead, we were treated to more of Ramsay Snow—a man whom we already know is a sadist, so must we be continually reminded of it with ever increasing enthusiasm? Of course Sansa was in for a rape on her wedding night—we didn’t have to hear it while it happened. Also featured was the burning at the stake of a child, and it was not enough for the producers to suggest it was happening; no, we had to hear the girl screaming for her mother until the flames were pretty well extinguished. Oh, and then there was the public humiliation of Cersei, whose walk of shame was indeed written into the books (Sansa’s rape and Shireen’s fiery death were not) but which lasted on paper for as long as it took to read. On film, they dragged it out for a longer eternity to me than it was for the character.

Painful.

Brutally painful.

And the final insult? The series won best drama at the Emmys this year.

Mortifying.

So, now what do I do? I have yet to cancel HBO—The Knick resumes this month and yep, I’m hooked—but the reason why I signed up in the first place has gone sour. The first season was awesome (except for the obligatory gratuitous sex), the second slightly less so, the third perfectly awful for the torturing of Theon Greyjoy, the fourth started to stray from the books and the fifth, well, the fifth isn’t coming to my DVD collection any time soon. In fact, I may unload the second, third and fourth seasons if I can find a taker. My office buddy teases that I’ll be unable to resist season six in the spring, but I wouldn’t put money on that one.

I’ll just wait for GRRM to publish the next book.

A Literary Feast

Since the Flyers didn’t make the playoffs, HBO has given me a reason to live through the next two months: season 5 of Game of Thrones premieres tonight at 8:00 p.m. Hats and horns! I hear rumours that the plot diverts from the novels this year, which it pretty well must, as the fifth book was published in 2011, the show has been roaring along, and the sixth book is still pending. I’ve also heard that GRRM has stepped away from the TV series to focus more intently on getting the darned novel done, and has blessed the show’s producers to take the story where they will.

Ter and I are planning our annual Thrones feast for the first episode. This year it’s honeyed chicken and buttered veggies, with frozen blueberries with sweet cream for afters. The recipes are taken from A Feast of Ice and Fire, a way cool book even if you don’t cook because it features quotes from the written series. The cookbook’s authors – foodies and chefs themselves – pored through the first four volumes (Dance with Dragons hadn’t been published yet) in search of meal descriptions and set out to create “real” versions of the fantasy food. Turned out that much of the fare in GRRM’s books has reasonable facsimiles in history, so the cookbook includes both the historical and modernized versions of each recipe. Lazy bum that I am, I find many of the modern versions too labour intensive, so the sweet cream for the blueberries is actually a medieval custard known as crème batard, or “bastard cream”, which is ironic considering that it’s a dish served at the Wall, where Ned Stark’s illegitimate son is in residence.

Okay, this post may be too specific for a non-Thrones reader. To recap, one of my favourite shows, based on my favourite work of one of my favourite authors, resumes tonight and I am there. Oh, and the Wall I mentioned? In the novels, it stands seven hundred feet tall, built of ice and snow to keep the terrors of the northern wilds at bay (a fantasy version of Hadrian’s Wall), but believe it or not, there is also a Wall here in Victoria. It stands about seven inches tall and is made of brick. It’s where I have coffee with my wee sister and my boy sister every week; last Thursday, the wee ’un emailed BS and me: “I might be a bit late today; can I just meet you guys at the Wall?”

Thunder-struck

I’ve not been writing much of late. It’s typical at this time of year, when fiscal-year-end eclipses life outside the office. I’ve been reading instead, seeking inspiration to keep from freaking out that I’ve lost my gift. Honestly, it happens every spring, and every spring I must remind myself that this ain’t my first rodeo. After Easter, I’ll have time that I presently don’t have to create. In the meantime, read, read, read. I’m almost finished with Lestat and have borrowed Station Eleven from a friend after reading kudos for it from GRRM and Erin Morgenstern.

I’ve also scored a copy of She’s Got Soul—a compilation CD from the Starbucks collection that features Nina Simone, Amy Winehouse, Etta James, and a host of other soul sistahs. It’s squaring off against Diana Krall’s Wallflower for air time on my stereo. I’ve played around with opening scenes and story ideas on Tuesday nights, but have been totally disinclined to boot the writing rig on my days off. I did discover that I can stream whole episodes of X Company from cbc.ca, however, and I’ve baked a lot of muffins in that downtime. Ter and I were also supposed to travel to Vancouver for the Flyers/Canucks game on the 17^th, but the energy required to get there, plus the inconvenience of losing two workdays at this critical juncture, convinced us to stay home and watch the game on TV.

It’s the worst time to wrestle with my muse. I am easily frustrated by alluring fragments for new works and reminders of those that have stalled. I realize that I haven’t finished anything since January, when the speed picked up at work, and have recently (irrationally) wondered if I will ever finish anything that isn’t about vampires. This prompted me to consider, for the nth time, unraveling the novel to the first eight chapters and writing it in another direction though the only thing wrong with what I’ve written so far is me.

Ter and I saw Celtic Thunder perform on March 11. The lads came to Victoria on their “Best Of” tour, and with Damian McGinty returned to the fold, I was taken back in time to the early days of my Fixed Fire series. The first few volumes were driven by Def Leppard and Sarah McLachlan, but a good chunk of the next generation was fuelled by the Celtic boys and “Celtic Woman” before them. Hearing the songs that sparked so vibrantly in my imagining a handful of years ago was a welcome jolt to the system last week. At this point, I’m either winding down at work or completely desperate to escape it, because seeing the show brought back all the passion I felt for my Castasian characters and their wild green mountainous magical world. This past weekend, I dragged out the novel again, reconnected with the story, and have committed to finishing the f***er or die trying.

This is volume 7. I’ve got material for one more after this, and part of my motivation to finish Reijo’s story is so I can get to Aurelia’s. Make no mistake; I adore Reijo. He’s my white knight in dented armour and he deserves a happy ending. I’m just not very good at happy endings, so doing right by him has been a struggle. I need him now, though, to prove to myself that vampires are not my sole strength, to get me through year-end and give me a project for a much-needed writing holiday planned for some time in April.

The Importance of Tea (Part IX)

“Synchronicitea”

Yesterday I walked into my executive director’s office and asked if it was too early in the season to kill myself.

“Why?” he asked. “Have you become a Toronto fan?”

“I’m thinking about it,” I replied. “Philly was shut out in Chicago last night.”

“They won on the weekend, didn’t they?”

“Dallas beat them 6 - 4.”

“Fire the coach,” he said. “He’s already lasted twice as long as Laviolette last year.”

After some discussion, during which he convinced me to stick around at least until I get the semi-annual report done for him, I returned to my desk and borrowed from GRRM when filling in my “what’s happening” field in the office IM:

CHI 4 – PHI 0. Life is miserable and full of pain.

A couple of hours later, a co-worker logged in and saw my frownie face emoticon. “Team not doing well?” she asked, with sympathy.

“Nope,” I answered glumly. “They haven’t won a game yet.”

“Maybe you should change your hockey tea.”

A horrible thought occurred that straightened me in my chair. “I haven’t been drinking my hockey tea!”

She was equally aghast. “Well, that’ll be why they’re sucking!”

“That’s it,” I declared, “we’re going to David’s at lunch.”

I know, I know. It’s a mad superstition, like wearing my jersey and setting Basher just so in front of the TV, but for the past couple of years, I’ve drunk David’s buttered rum black tea on Flyer game nights. Sometimes they win, sometimes they don’t, but it’s a ritual that I defied on October 8 and can it really be a coincidence that the team hadn’t won a game in 6 tries?

It was worth it to test the theory. I went to David’s, bought 50 gms of buttered rum, ordered a cup to go for insurance because I had no time to brew it before the puck dropped, and crossed my fingers for the game in Pittsburgh last night.

Philadelphia won, 4-2.

I rest my case.

The Write Place

Gadzooks, it’s true! I can’t write (fiction) except at my computer in my writing room!

On his 2005 book tour for Feast for Crows, GRRM spoke of how some writers can pull out a laptop and write anywhere—hotel rooms, airports, cafés etc.—but he’s not like that. He must be in his room at home, at his (then) clunky old rig, if he hopes to get anything accomplished.

I got it then and I’ve confirmed it now.

Back at work, with momentum on the Calista/Darius story, I took myself to lunch and brought my notebook along, intending to scribble the next scene or some dialogue—anything to keep the mojo going until my first weeknight writing session on Tuesday.

I was halfway through the best salad in town (Zazu café’s house special, no onions) before I gave up on grasping anything useful for the story. Seems I can write posts or the occasional exercise during a break from the office, but anything on a work in progress? Can’t do it.

The café wasn’t busy. I had the entire loft to myself. Adele’s “Someone Like You” was playing on the stereo and she inspires me, so that was no deterrent. I had given myself permission to write loosely by hand, knowing I could polish the product later.

So what gives?

I can only surmise that the one safe place where I can lower my guard and channel the characters is in my room at home, at my clunky old rig.

There’s nothing wrong with this, of course. My hero admits to a similar dysfunction—but is it a dysfunction? Or is it a function of creativity that we must feel safe in isolation before we can open ourselves to the Muse? You’d think with a medium so portable that I could rough out entire scenes over lunch, but no. No, no, no. More than mobility, I obviously need a place where I can forget myself and silence my survival mechanism before I disappear into fiction.

Hey, like the kid in the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip once said, “Be careful, or be road kill.”

Last of the Summer Whine

Back to work tomorrow. I’m not ready. The pace, the paperwork, the people – I like my job and I like the people I work with, but during the past fortnight my life has settled into its own rhythm and it has been heavenly.

Though I’m trying to be reasonable about it, my inner two-year-old is stiff as a board and screaming. I took her on a long beach flânerie this morning, keeping as close to the water as possible to avoid the “pound pound pound, huff huff huff” of the ubiquitous joggers. Good that the tide was out; regrettable that the beach is rocky and tipped at an angle that makes walking more difficult. Every step required presence of mind, which I guess was a positive given that it kept me focused on the moment rather than dwelling on my resistance to the inevitable. When I got home, Ter reflected my feelings with her own, then suggested we enjoy our day rather than waste it fretting about tomorrow.

And tomorrow and tomorrow.

The Calista/Darius story got serious traction during the past couple of days. I’m at the two-thirds point where I finally foresee an ending though I’m yet unsure how it will look for Calista when I get there. I also took another look at the urban vampire series I’d started BL (before Lucius); the character sketch of Rob Browning was taken from it and now I’m contemplating how to rework the whole story because it won’t farkin’ let me go. Rob and Cassie are the star-crossed lovers and Darius is the bad guy. The universal plot portent, I know. I recently watched an interview with George RR Martin wherein he quoted Faulkner’s reminder that the human heart in all its conflict is what makes a story. Whether it is set in the wild west, outer space, 17^th century France or the Amazon jungle, the characters make it real … even if one is a vampire.

Bibliography (Part 2)

“Dangerous Women”

It’s the latest anthology edited by my hero, George R.R. Martin, and his buddy, Gardner Dozois. A collection of stories about … three guesses and the first two don’t count. I requested it for Christmas and am not quite halfway through the content. Some of the stories are longer than mine, and the book itself is so heavy I can’t read it in bed without risking a concussion. I don’t generally read anthologies—the last one to be acquired was “Warriors”, edited by the same pair to the same hefty result—but the subject matter is one dear to my heart, being a bit of a bad girl myself … in my dreams, at least.

There’s no set definition of what makes a woman dangerous. She doesn’t have to be a whip-cracking, gun-toting, chain-smoking dominatrix out to seize control of an industrial empire. She can be a danger to herself, as well. She can be an unstable mother, an insecure wife, a downtrodden daughter; or she can be a fledgling sorcerer without a mentor, a secret agent, a queen regent, or the unassuming cover for an infamous bounty hunter whom everyone refers to as “him” or “he”. This book is stuffed with tales that span the spectrum, though so far I have yet to happen on a heroine in the grip of PMS. After all, that’s when I am the most dangerous.

I’ve written a lot of female characters over the years. I thought Génie/Janine was the most dangerous of the herd, but then I remembered a story I wrote in 2001 so, in keeping with the theme, I’ve carved it up for serial posting starting this Saturday. Working with it again after all these years, I believe that the most dangerous woman of all is probably the one who holds a man’s heart.

The things we do for love …

What's In a Name?

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Not so, Will. A name can cause a problem by word association if the author isn’t careful. Case in point: my angel story.

The protagonist’s name is Cristal – named for her father’s favourite champagne. (Her father was a rock star in the 80s so I suspect that particular libation may have had something to do with her conception.) She came with her name; I didn’t have to hunt around for it.

Her father came with a first name – Curtis. His surname eludes me, but I know it starts with a hard C or a K. The first option was King, which would absolutely fit his persona, but there’s already a musician named Curtis King and while I doubt it’s copyrighted, I want to respect that someone else in the field already owns it. Next up: Clarke. Yeah, “Curtis Clarke ˮ has a nice ring to it … but then I realized that his daughter’s nickname is “Cristiˮ (“Crisˮ didn’t work for either of us), and even though she wasn’t given her father’s name at birth, there are still some folks who would automatically assume that her name is Cristal, or Cristi, Clarke.

If you live in BC, and if you know me at all, you probably know where this is going …

The Premier of BC happens to be named Christy Clark. Spelled differently, sounds exactly the same. I refuse to saddle any of my characters with a name that instantly sends me to a blood pressure situation, ergo “Clarkeˮ has to go. The story is going so well, though, that I’ve been forced to type a placebo where Curtis’s surname would be until I can figure out what it actually is, and then I’ll do a global replace. Bother.

My hero, George R.R. Martin, once told a story about a famous sci-fi author who named no characters until after the story was complete; she would simply type “Name Aˮ for the hero, “Name Bˮ for the baddie and so on. She would plug in the names later. George couldn’t get his mind around that and neither could I. Names are important, not only for identifying the character, but for developing it as well. People really do become their names; at least in my stories, they do.

I wish Curtis himself would be more helpful here, but he’s not giving me an inch. I guess it doesn’t matter that much to him, but it will drive me crazy until I figure out what he signs in an autograph …

Surrender

 

 

“If you surrender and go with her, you have surrendered to enchantment, as if in a voluptuous dream.”

 

Way back in the 1970s, this was the Boston Globe’s opinion of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. I would dearly love to have it apply to my writing, so I’ve kept it in my heart for all these years and aspired to be worthy of it.

 

I was heavily influenced by Anne Rice in the 1980s, then George R.R. Martin, and now, Rob Thurman. Three vastly different authors with three vastly different styles, each of which has left an impression that may or may not be reflected in my own writing. In striving to emulate each of them, I have also discovered and developed my singular style, for which I am eternally grateful to them as teachers, and as storytellers.

 

I write about people. Families, lovers, friends, enemies, passersby and casual acquaintances, they are all connected through their human experience. If you surrender and come with me, you will fall in love. Your heart will soar and your heart will break. You will know joy. You will know pain. You will laugh. You will cry. You will be hunted. You will be the hunter. You will cradle a child to your breast. You will mourn that child. You will know fear and you will know relief. You will see and hear and feel the characters’ experience to the nth degree – but you will also find that nothing has changed when it’s over. You will be safe and sound in your comfy chair ... and if I’ve done my job well, you will remember.

 

But first, you must surrender.

Season Three

There’s something magical and terrifying about the third of anything. The third book in a series. The third movie in a sequence. The third goal in a hockey game. The third album from a musician. The third can make or break a writer, producer, hockey team, singer, you name it. The first is an introduction. The second is laying more groundwork. The third is where lines are drawn, favourites are named and fates are decided.

Today begins season 3 of HBO’s Game of Thrones. This is the season the producers envisioned when they pitched the show to the network. Much of the content has been culled from the third book in A Song of Ice and Fire (by my hero George R.R. Martin), which in my mind was the book that made the series of novels. Inside, I am running around screaming. This is the season where the story really starts. I’ve been watching trailers for weeks, pouncing on every new link that pops up online. This is the season where my heart will be in my mouth the whole time even though I know what’s coming – or maybe because I know what’s coming. And by the gods, the producers had better not pull a Downton Abbey with the finale or I may just lose my mind.

Somehow, I doubt they will.