It almost feels like tempting Fate to admit this, but today has been one of those rare, wonderful, white-hot revision days. I am SO close to being done with this draft of Kat by Starlight, and it's making me tingle with anticipation. Today I stormed through logic problems that had been defeating me for the last few weeks, tied up character arcs, filled in bracketed historical questions...all I still have to do is finish re-choreographing those scenes in the King's Bath and the building around it. Of course, I still don't have a firm historical layout for that building, which makes the task a lot harder, but I'm at least making progress - I found a wonderful Bath Directory from 1792 the other day, and today I'm planning to read issues of The Bath Guide from 1800 and 1804, with high hopes of discovering useful information. I also read a fun article about the Baths in an old issue of Jane Austen's Regency World, which is just the kind of magazine I'd normally find really tempting but feel far too guilty to buy. (Not enough real research value, too much silliness!) So I loved having the excuse to buy this particular issue. I've dutifully read and taken notes on the relevant article...and this afternoon I get to settle in and just squee over the totally irrelevant articles about Georgette Heyer, various Austen movies, etc.

I can't WAIT to be done with this draft. I want to be able to send it off to my agent and other critiquers...I want to have a few weeks off from it...and I really, really want to start writing the first draft of Book 3, Kat by Ghostlight. Soon!

In the meantime, I had something really nice happen the other day - I was invited to join SF Novelists, an invitation-only group of science fiction and fantasy novelists that includes a bunch of my favorite writers. I've been reading their group blog for a really long time now, so it felt like a total thrill to be invited to join. I don't think I'll start blogging there myself until closer to Kat's publication in 2010, but I'm really excited about being part of the group.

I'm also starting to feel the strangeness of the transition period I'm in. Yesterday morning, as I was making myself oatmeal for breakfast, I remembered my own mom making me and my brothers oatmeal for breakfast on cold winter mornings, and how warm and comforting that always felt. Then I thought: How weird. I'm going to be a mom, making oatmeal for my kids! And then, of course, it hit me: I AM a mom, already...because of course I am, with a baby kicking and rolling inside my stomach almost nonstop nowadays to remind me of it. (And in fact, he/she is even eating the oatmeal, through me! ;p ) But of course it's not the same yet, before he/she comes out...it really is a strange, liminal period I'm in right now, halfway between childlessness and parenthood. And it could be less than 5 weeks before I move to the next stage... Wow.