Last night was one of those times when I'm positive that my choice of a career in writing is the absolute right thing.

I met up with Mike and his lovely wife Elizabeth at 6:30 for dinner at the Neomonde Baking Company. Really good Lebanese food; I had a small platter of hummus, baba ghanouj, tabouli, dolmades, and pita bread. Then we headed over to the NCSU campus through the cold driving rain for the reading. Jim Morrow did a fantastic job, reading from The Last Witchfinder in a great low projective voice; you could tell he'd been doing readings for twenty years. Afterward, we drove up to John Kessel's house for a small impromptu party, which was extremely fun. Three of my classmates from the novel-writing workshop came, in addition to Dr. Barnhardt and several other folks.

As usual, the evening came down to talk of writing and publishing. Mike told me about a one-off zine he's hoping to produce in time for World Fantasy in DC this year. And Jim Morrow talked about his current battles with his publisher over his newest book. Jim and John Kessel both congratulated me on my Electric Velocipede sale, which was nice. Jim said it didn't matter what the circulation was; somebody thought my writing was good enough to print. That really made me smile. Not that I'm at all ashamed to be in EV's pages; even if it's small, it's got a good reputation and people are reading it.

So anyway, I stayed an hour longer than I thought I would last night, and got home around midnight. It was so hard getting out of bed this morning and dragging my ass to work, but somehow I did it. I had a great time last night, hanging out and waxing literary with writers I enjoy. Makes me feel more like a bohemian.

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Now Reading:
The Wannoshay Cycle by Michael Jasper

Stories Out to Publishers:
10

Stories Sold This Year:
3

Novel Word Count:
18,800