"Are those Sandra's plans?" Shelley asked, strolling over to look. "Bitsy and I have discussed the fact that the measurements aren't entirely correct."

Jane suddenly had an insight that had nothing to do with this job. She'd been creeping through what she hoped would turn into a historical novel for a couple of years. She realized as Shelley spoke that the spooky house where the main character lived was almost a character itself> and that one of the problems she'd always faced with the writing was that she could picture the sprawling old house sitting on a hostile crag. But she had no idea what it was like inside. Her character had looked out over the dark, cold sea from her bedroom window. That was all she knew.

Jane desperately wanted to run and get a com-

puter program that would allow her to make the house plans so that when her heroine walked from the bedroom suite to the stairs, Jane could actually picture how many steps it would take and what other doorways were in the upper hall. And she had a new computer it would work on. The plans Shelley, Joe, and Bitsy were looking at had to have been computer-generated.

Thomasina was back at work. Shelley had presented her own measurements to Joe Dudley, and Jane pulled Shelley aside and quietly said, "Do you really need me to talk to Thomasina? I have something I really want to do with my book today."

Shelley looked pleased. "I haven't heard you mention your book in forever. I'm glad to hear you're still working on it. Go ahead. I can handle this myself."

Jane rushed to her car, headed for the nearest computer center, and dashed home with the program the clerk had recommended. Not a truly professional one. Those, she learned, cost thousands of dollars and you had to take classes to learn how they worked. But lots of do-it-yourselfers used the one she had bought for a hundred dollars. She dithered a bit reading the instructions for installing the program and was astonished when she got it right on the first try.