a conversation with death

Do you ever notice that some of your best ideas come just before you fall asleep? You're lying there all snug in your bed, almost drifting off, your mind floating free, and suddenly it comes to you. It could be the perfect query letter you've been trying to write or the scene you were trying to get right earlier that day, or a replay of a conversation in which you say all the right things instead of all the wrong ones. Maybe it's an idea, an absolutely brilliant idea, or the solution to how to get your characters out of the jam you got them into. Or in my case, maybe it's a conversation with DEATH. Yeah, you know who he is. The guy with the hood and the scythe, or, as Terry Pratchett says: "An obvious sort of fellow: tall, thin (skeletal, as a matter of fact), and ALWAYS SPEAKS IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Generally shows up when you're dead, or just when he thinks you ought to be. Not a bad chap when you get to know him (and sooner or later everyone gets to know him)."

Now if I could just remember what we were talking about...