I plotted this out, sat down to write it, and remembered boasting that, unlike most period mysteries, this one was going to be really accurate. How could I have been so stupid? I intimidated myself into a panic, scared to write a word, because it is impossible to be totally accurate. What if I made an obscure mistake? What if I made an obvious mistake?

I had a friend who wanted to get published. She was already an accomplished writer, and knew lots of things about the fifteenth century I didn't. So I gave her the outline, saying, "You write it." She set out and then made the mistake of showing me what she was doing. The story was pretty good, but it wasn't the way I would have told it. And she didn't know as much as I did about "regular" clergy, people who live under a rule -- in this case the Holy Rule of St. Benedict. I tried to show her how it would be better if this, if that, and admired some of the stuff she was doing, and next thing we knew, it was a collaboration.