A few days ago at work I stumbled directly into a box-thorn. As I extricated myself from the sharp thorns stabbing me, I suddenly remembered how often I've had Lisa run into box-thorns at various points during the story, and thought, I'd better reply to people's comments. Of course, it's taken me about three days to get around to it, but better late than never, I suppose.
Brian: Thanks for the ever-punctual reply! I'm pleased you found the end appropriate to the mood of the chapter - something really was bugging me about it and it took some work to fix it up. As for the "deep and meaningful" ... that WAS a noun ... I mean, not technically, but it's used as such, as least in Australia, and (mostly) with teenagers I suppose ... mostly girls. It means a deep and meaningful talk, sometimes shortened to a D&M ... at least in WA. I didn't even think about it as being a bit odd, but there you go. As for the law-breakers/criminals thing ... I don't see the difference, really, they are just synonyms. Anyway, as you pointed out, this chapter was a way of calming things down from the more action-packed chapters of the last book's finale.
Master Kirby: Possibly psychic, yes, or perhaps just intuitive. Thanks for the congrats, too. I'm so glad you liked the description in this chapter - I actually really enjoyed writing the scene where Lisa was at the window: I just created this description of Redwood City on the spot, and I could really picture it in my mind, it looks beautiful to me. I'm glad it was real for you, too.
Sike Saner: The spider thing was actually a little bit based on a spider we used to have in our kitchen - my mother grew particularly fond of it for some reason and none of us were allowed to kill it - it hung around for months. I don't know why, but it entered my head during the writing of this chapter and it seemed like a nice kind of friend for Lisa during her loneliest times. ^^ Doctor Rogers just kind of came to me, and what a perfectly nasty piece of work she is - glad you found her amusing. And as to the other quotes - they were both chapter highlights for me, too. Seeya next chapter!
Everyone: I sat down the other day to write Chapter 61, but I couldn't get going. Pretty frustrated, I tried several times before giving up and deciding to instead write a few notes about the fates of the characters at the end of the fic. Well, I couldn't have expected what happened. All these ideas that have been skulking around my imagination for five years or more suddenly came spilling out: not just ideas for what will happen at the end, but pages of backstory from before Lisa began her quest, as well as detailed plans for the rest of book three. After a few hours I looked back and there was about four or five thousand words of solid notes - I'm more pleased with this than I would have been if I'd finished Chapter 61 that day. As such, I'm probably going to focus on finishing off all those notes before I get on to Chapter 61, which could mean the chapter is a few weeks away yet, but I'm convinced the notes are infinitely more important at this stage in the fic.
Cheers!