I'm racing down the final stretch of the first draft of BEAUTY QUEENS. Well, that's optimistic. I WISH I were racing. More like limping while dragging a large slab of beef wrapped in chains. (Don't ask me where that image came from. I have not, to my knowledge, ever limped down a street dragging a side of chained beef behind me.)

I hate this part. It's relentless. It reminds me of when I used to run cross-country, those practices where you'd be out doing a ten-mile run, and at some point, you...