While writing at Fireside Coffee Lodge last night, I finally felt like I was falling back into The Car Novel. You know that feeling: Reconnecting with old family and friends, I mean with your characters, knowing in a heartbeat what some will say in response to anyone and any situation, and immersing yourself back into the world you've lovingly and painstakingly created for them.

In real life and in The Car Novel, the timing is right. The season has just begin. The weather is the same, the worries are the same, the challenges are the same. The frantic, time-line rush to get everything right feels the same for me as I'm editing the first half of my MS for the third time and for my characters as they are walking into a season unlike any they've ever known. Look out big block, side-draft pumping, blower-clad, paddle-shifting, open exhaust, triple chromed, street rod-lovin' world, here I go again!

Come July, I expect I'll be more Floyd, Cecil, Scratchy, and Novato than myself, a mental state that I expect will last deep into autumn. If anyone out there has got a burning question they've wanted to ask me, ask now or risk getting obsessive automotive trivia gibberish later.