Well, I will say one thing for myself, I do write an exceptionally nice leading man.

Okay, so he kept glancing askance at me with a slightly odd expression on his face. You couldn't blame him; to him it must have looked like his girlfriend had mentally checked out. That would make sense since she had, but whatever. I didn't have to lift a finger. He made breakfast and even called David for me/her and nicely said that I was feeling a little under the weather and would not be attending work. It was a good thing he did since I had handily forgotten that she worked with David by this point in the story and if I could have even found the number I would have called the magazine where she was no longer employed. Oh well, at least I would have had the pregnancy amnesia defence. It became quickly apparent that I would have to make very frequent use of it.

Since the only way I knew to restore one's self to your own body was a magic necklace and this was the wrong story for that, I had little choice but to ride it out - or, hopefully, wake up as soon as possible. Justin left to go do whatever pop stars do and I decided to test out the shower after freaking out some more. There was a brief light bulb moment where I figured I could just look at the date and judge where the story was at from there, but it turns out my bulb's a little dim since I never wrote any dates into the story anyway. Damn my lackadaisical approach to timelines. This is what I get for re-writing *NSYNC history (though it did occur to me to see if this had resulted in any new *NSYNC songs I'd never heard, sadly I got too lost in the house to even locate the stereo let alone the music collection).

I'd never written in much detail of their bathroom so it was a bit strange to walk into the kind of shower it takes NASA scientists to operate. There were spray nozzles and control switches everywhere and it took me no less than ten minutes to get a sensible heat and pressure to the water. One moment I was nearly scalding myself and the next I was letting loose a jet of water powerful enough to scour the entire epidermis and probably all subcutaneous fat from my back. It was all black marble and I was convinced I was going to slip and crack my head on something. For a moment I wondered if a good smack to the head would break me out of this whole trippy experience, but then I sensibly decided that fractured skulls and brain damage are too big a risk to take.

My one and only break through came when Justin sent a text message… and nearly scared me half to death doing so. Why the hell the woman thought Black Sabbath was suitable ring tone material I will never know; I flatter myself I know her pretty well and it was not a Hollie Masterson ring tone. My best guess was a prank by somebody - possibly Chris Kirkpatrick, who could be sure? This text message was my life line. This text message told me he'd scheduled a group meeting via Johnny. This little tidbit along with my lack of bump drew me to the conclusion that he had not yet informed any members of *NSYNC of my… ugh, HER pregnancy.

I really hate the fact that this ridiculous thing has now got me referring to a fictional character as though she's me. All authors leave a little of themselves in their characters but this is blurring the lines a little too far.

Whatever. Anyway, the point is that nobody but Shannen, her mother and presumably Justin's knew yet. This told me exactly where I was in the story and what had or hadn't happened yet. It wasn't going to help me with the day to day stuff, but it would at least mean I didn't go around prophesising the future. I don't think Justin wanted to know that he was going to have his daughter kidnapped. Speaking of which… just as an FYI, unfortunately I was at this point so consumed with trying to pretend to be a fictional character and how this could be successfully achieved that I handily forgot about that guy.

It was probably for the best. I'd already had one suspected stroke on meeting Justin, no need for a massive coronary to go with it.

This information let me know that the fictional Hollie was an overnight guest and not an actual resident of the house yet. This led me to believe that my safest course of action might be to go back to her apartment and hibernate until I woke back up in my own body. Apart from anything else, the lack of knowing whether this was a dream or drug induced or… God help me… real… meant I didn't know what the rules were. Was I actually capable of changing the story by being in it? Theoretically it should be possible to go back and fix it if I ever got home… but how many people do you know who remember every exact syllable of a story they wrote five years ago? Not many, I'd wager. My guess was that Shannen would be the easiest person to deal with; I could just stick to girly chit chat.

I will not be describing for you the farcical shambles that was me driving to her apartment. I have never driven on the right hand side of the road before and I never want to do so again. Trying to drive in a country where you are entirely ignorant of traffic laws is a minefield as it is, trying to do so while remembering that all the lanes on the road were backwards and what's normally the slow lane is actually the fast one is an accident waiting to happen. It's just a good thing I had a navigation system in the car and a bill in her bag with her full home address on it. All I'd ever written was the apartment number and in a city full of apartment complexes that's just not helpful.

The apartment was almost exactly as I imagined it to be. It was a small, cosy space that screamed 'two females live here.' I saw the coffee table and the photo album I'd written about. I saw the little kitchen alcove and the squishy cream couches. I went into the rooms and immediately identified the lemon yellow one as Shannen's and the cool blue one as Hollie's, or temporarily mine if you prefer. Both were neat and tidy, but Shannen's was somehow bolder. It was more eclectic. My leading lady's room was just like my leading lady - neat and not totally without style, but very ordinary. It was comforting right about then, any more of the extraordinary and my head was in danger of exploding.

My favourite part was the dog. The happy dog that bounded up to me with a smile and a wag of the tail, obviously delighted beyond belief to see me. I have one of them myself so this at least was wonderfully familiar. I remembered that she was Constance and I petted and tickled her and she was a bright spot of sanity in the hallucination. You may raise an eyebrow at me describing any sanity amongst a hallucination but please just humour me.

The real drama began after my nap.

I took a nap on the couch with the dog. My dog isn't allowed on couches but given how covered in black and white hair this one was, I figured Constance enjoyed that privilege. Besides, I was having a really bad day and I really needed a cuddle. Dogs don't judge you even if you are on an acid trip. I sat down, she leapt up next to me and snuggled in, and I decided that us taking a nap together was a fine idea. I was very much hoping that if I went to sleep in the dream when I woke up it would be in real life.

Regrettably this was not to be. The doorbell woke me up what I think was approximately an hour later and I was still right where I'd started. I could say I was disappointed, but that would be akin to saying that Justin Timberlake plays a bit of music; it's not strictly untrue but it seriously fails to cover the full scope of things. Anyway, you can imagine I was quite panicked. Shannen had her own keys, so that meant what I had was a visitor. I was not ready for visitors. I was not prepared for visitors. Unless it was a member of *NSYNC or some other publicly recognisable figure from the real world, I wouldn't even have a clue who this visitor was. That might get awkward. For all I knew I might be about to greet the Avon lady like she was a life long friend.

I opened the door (why oh why hadn't I written in a peephole?) and there was a man standing there. Infuriatingly, this was yet another visage that looked impossibly familiar to me, so I knew he had to be a main character. Perhaps he was David, photographer extraordinaire? They were pretty close; he could conceivably stop by to check in on his pal. I didn't dare greet whoever it was by name, so I just smiled instead and said a nice safe "hi."

Silence reigned, which was extremely odd. Whoever he was, he was content to stand at the door and stare at me. Her. Me. Her… oh fuck it, whatever.

Now, trying to wrack your brain through nearly seventy chapters of a story to think of somebody whose physical description matches the person in front of you is not a quick process. That's not good when somebody's standing in front of you looking at you expectantly with a strange grin on their face. He was tall and fairly skinny - not as buff as Justin, weedier and less muscled. In contrast to Justin's square, honest face this man was all angles and shadows, all… sinister looking.

Yeah. I'm sure you figured it out long before I did, but Carl was standing in front of me. That would be Villain Carl who inspired his very own 'Die Carl Die' club on the message board where I originally posted Letting Go (true story).

On realising this, you'd have thought my next action to be slamming the door in his face. The man was unhinged and would go on to do some really creepifying and evil stuff and I should have been putting as much solid wood and brick between him and me/her as possible, but you can understand why there was an element of morbid fascination. The guy came from some of the more twisted parts of my psyche and here he was, in the flesh. My weird little brain had created this freak show and here he was, flesh and bone in front of me. For a moment there he didn't seem quite real, it was like I was walking through an exhibit and staring at a wax figure.

Then I realised I'd smiled and him and nigh on fainted. All I could think was 'oh God, I might have encouraged him.' This was a ridiculous idea if you think about it. Me, encourage him? He was going to kidnap the baby and beat Hollie into a bloody pulp as it was, what more did I think I could make him do at this juncture? That then started a panic about the fact Carl was unaware of her pregnancy and whether he could magically tell and it turns out that I am fully capable of having a panic attack in fictional bodies as well as my own.

The bastard seemed to quite enjoy it. I write nice leading men and really disturbing arseholes too.

"I heard you weren't feeling well," he said sweetly. "Under the weather?"

"I was feeling better until I opened the door. Now suddenly I feel sick," I sniped back at him. Generally speaking I do not share the fictional Hollie's sass and smart mouth when it comes to confrontations, so I was mildly surprised at myself.

"And this is the thanks I get for showing concern," Carl replied mockingly. "Maybe Justin gave you something, have you been tested?"

Quite frankly Carl looked far more like a candidate for syphilis than Justin, but given the history and future of violence there was only so far I cared to push him. "What do you want?"

"I told you. I'm concerned."

Really, if the man had directed this concern for Hollie back towards himself then maybe he wouldn't have wound up dead after a shoot out… but then, it struck me, how could I stand there and judge him? I wrote him, after all. He was a sicko because I needed him to be a sicko for my story. He and all the grief he wrought on Justin, Hollie and their friends and family were because of yours truly. This may be extremely blasphemous, but for a moment there I kind of knew how God feels when one of his followers strays off the path - except that God has all that omniscience and his plan to take comfort in and I had nothing except the dog.

Interestingly, she didn't like him. She'd growled at him. Animals are smarter than given credit for; I'm so glad I never followed through on my original plan to have Carl do his own variant on the Fatal Attraction bunny incident. Constance is too good for that.

"I'm touched." Even in somebody else's body, my ability to lay on the sarcasm in my voice is unequalled. "You can go away now."

"But you're sick. Somebody should look after you."

It was freaky to hear it in person. Although this was a scene I'd never even imagined let alone written, he was talking in the same loaded way he did in the story: ostensibly talking about one thing while actually saying she had a Justin addiction that needed fixing. This really was the creepiest individual you could possibly imagine and I find it very worrying that he was born from my psyche.

Maybe somebody should put me through a Rorschach test to be on the safe side.

"Physician heal thyself," I muttered. "I'm just fine, thank you. But if I need some company you can rest assured you will be right at the bottom of my list of people to call." Then it occurred to me that I had already engaged him too long as it was, so finally I snapped out of my masochistic curiosity and ended it. "If you do not leave immediately security will escort you out. Buh bye now."

Slamming the door in his face was momentarily satisfying but ultimately empty. My shoulders were trembling and my breathing was still unsteady. The air had been sucked from the room and the ground felt wobbly beneath my feet… or maybe that was my feet. I already knew this feeling; I'd written the fear in Hollie's eyes a million times, but… really, there's nothing like feeling it for yourself. I don't recommend it. Seriously, if you can avoid being sucked into stories where you wrote any kind of nasty character in, do so. In fact, it may be much safer for all fandom if the lot of us just stick to Mary Sues from now on.

When I collapsed back onto the sofa, it occurred to me that at this point in the story Carl had just committed a criminal offence.

He'd broken his bail conditions and violated a restraining order; neither got lifted until much later in the pregnancy. The fictional Hollie wouldn't have known this yet - she got that news shortly before the *NSYNC bomb drop meeting I mentioned earlier - but I bet he did. I bet that's why he tried it, either because he thought she wouldn't know yet or he just wanted to rub in how ineffectual they were at keeping him away from her. I could probably expect a phone call soon enough informing me/her of it. Either way, it was still in effect now. One phone call to the police could get him locked back up in jail.

The problem was that I had written myself into a bind. Apart from the fact that I should not be reporting violations of a restraining order I had not yet been informed of, in the story Carl does not go back to jail. I felt sure that even if he had made a quick return trip between chapters, in the moments I had not written, that would be big enough to have been mentioned later on. For me to call the police and get his ass sent back to the big house where he belonged (and hopefully share a cell with Jack Knife Benny who was in the market for a new bitch) could change everything. As such and as much as it pained me, I didn't dare. I was already worried that appearing to initially welcome him might have encouraged his deluded belief that Hollie was merely playing the world's most professional game of 'hard to get' or would somehow make him tip his hand before scheduled. Whatever else I did, I had to try and stick to the story.

I'm telling you people - Mary Sue, that's the way to go.