I have been reading one blog post over and over again lately. In Neil Gaiman's Journal, he wrote a wonderful post called "Why write?" celebrating the moment the story comes to life for a writer. The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it's about and why you're doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and surprising ("but of course that's why he was doing that, and that means that...") and it's magic and wonderful and strange (