The scariest thing to do in writing is trusting your story, or so I'm learning. TUBE started out as a joke of sorts. I didn't really intend to write a book about a train, but then I applied for the Amtrak Residency, and I thought, "Why not? Easy-peasy. I can do it. I won't win it anyway." But then I I did win, and dammit, I had to deliver. Well, I did. I wrote something-something about an American train, and something-something about Bolshoi ballerinas, and something-something about that train killing those ballerinas. Only the story was not about it at all. The real story was hiding underneath, and I was afraid to go there and to pull it out. I have invented all kinds of disguises to mask it, and so today when I finished reading the third draft of TUBE, I have stripped all pretense and started writing it as is. No mystery. No secrets. Nothing. Just exactly what happened.

Here it is for you. Starting on Chapter 14 (the previous thirteen chapters are gone, but I will borrow stuff from them and insert it as needed), spelling out in the first line exactly what the book is about. Hence the title change. Hence the other changes coming.

Let me know what you think of this. I've never done so many changes to any of my books before, and certainly have never chopped off numerous chapters from the beginning. Twice.