Got a check from Bantam this morning. Well, to be strictly accurate, a check from Random House, the parent company. This is good news both because it's nice to be able to pay the bills, and because this is the payment due per contract on acceptance of the final edited ms. That they made that payment means my editor approved my work on the copy-edited, line-edited version. Now the book goes into production. I'll report on what that means as we go along.