Tush in chair, fingers on keyboard. Where I am in the current WIP, (Isle of Man, England, Netherlands, end of English Civil War) my heroine is about to spill the beans on something even I didn't know. Which is both scary and great. I'm walking the fine line between "whoa, you never told me that happened" and "well, of course it did, it's perfectly logical." Which of course touches on the hero's protective instincts, his drive to take care of those for whom he's responsible.

It flows out of the characters naturally (even the actions of an important secondary character who is not present for this conversation) and it works, so of course my first instinct to to make a sound somewhere in the neighborhood of "eeeeek" and hide behind a file cabinet. Which will not happen because A) my writing group wants to see this scene tomorrow, and I know at least one of them is capable of physical violence, and B) I don't have a filing cabinet.

Having studied, in my checkered past, early childhood education (before I figured out it would involve me spending long periods of time alone with herds of small children; no thanks) I'm reminded of the kiddy song "Going on a Bear Hunt." In the song (may also have been a story book) a family is going on (you guessed it) a bear hunt. They face a series of obstacles like snowstorms, wind, waves, etc.

The chorus, which comes up with every obstacle, goes:

Can't go around it
Can't go over it
Can't go under it
Have to go through it

So here I go.