L. M. Montgomery's Yarn

Cavendish P. E. Island
Can.

Monday Evening
March 19, 1906.

My Dear Mr. MacMillan:

This is one of the days at the close of which I feel inclined to pat myself on the back! I have actually accomplished all the work which I planned to do when I got up this morning. This doesn't happen more oftener than once in a blue moon. Indeed, the more I plan to do the less I get done as a general thing. But to-day was a beautiful exception and my conscience is at peace. This letter will be the coping stone to the fair edifice of a good day's work. . .

I am tearing over the paper at a perfectly reckless rate. I want to write a chapter in a serial story to-night yet. It is a very sensational yarn, written to suit the taste of the journal that ordered it and I don't care much for writing such but they give a good price for it. It deals with a lost ruby, a lunatic, an idiot boy, a mysterious turret chamber and a lot of old standard tricks like that. I've got to have it done by a certain date so I'm striving to finish it.

There are heaps of things I wanted to write about but 20 pages must be the limit to-night, or I shan't have any gray matter left for that blessed serial.
With all good wishes.
Yours sincerely,
L. M. Montgomery

-from My Dear Mr. M: Letters to G. B. MacMillan from L. M. Montgomery edited by Francis W. P. Bolger and Elizabeth R. Epperly (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992) p.21-23.