I just got home from tonight's post-mortem of The Mysteries. It got me thinking, naturally, of all of the things we could be doing better on epiphany as we head into tech. There are a lot of things I wish were running smoother, being handled more promptly, being dealt with more diplomatically. I was all set to write a serious email expressing some of my concerns. And then I find this waiting for me:

Well, not just that, but a series of thats, which made me extremely happy. I'm not going to tell you what he is, except that he's a character in one of my pieces, and if you ask Carrie, she'll tell you his name is Magellan. To tell you any more would completely ruin the surprise. But, seeing that guy in my inbox just now (a present from Patrick, who's the kind of brilliant that catches you off guard) was exactly the reminder I needed that, despite all the stress and frustration that goes along with any show, I'm really excited by what I've been working on for the past few of months. When I first saw that image above, two weeks ago, it was so obviously right that we rethought the entire piece to focus on the black-and-white design. Now I can't imagine what else it might have looked like.

This show has been very different for a lot of us. With that comes unique problems and unexpected conflicts, but also unprecedented rewards.