So, Tim and I had a lovely holiday down in Santa Cruz this last weekend. I'm still behind on sleep, actually, so I'm going to be kind of lazy and point you to his entry on it, instead of writing my own.

But! I did do some writing of my own on Sunday night. A story idea that I started work on last Wednesday percolated to perfection (hopefully) over the lazy, sun-drenched Santa Cruz days, and last night, tired though I was, I sat down and completed the first draft. The working title is "Gaia" though I might have to change that, as it may give too much away.

Anyway, I finished a draft of a story! It's very rough, sure, but I think this one is revisable into something really cool and powerful. I hope. It's one of my surreal pieces; it started out being all relationshipy, but Tim's been very enthusiastic about my "straight-faced surrealism" lately, so it sorta slipped off in that direction (and is better for it, I think). It's also sorta relationshipy. I'm very excited about it, as I haven't had anything new since SWF. Yay! I hope to have it revised and ready for critiques soonish.

I'm also brainstorming ideas on how to revise "Skatebirding" which has been sitting around for months now. It's science fiction, not surrealism or urban fantasy or mythic fiction, so it's trickier for me to write and feel really good about. I'm also realizing that the way I want to revise it means shifting the focus away from the main action, which may be problematic. It may be one that, after my next revision, I try to get a lot of fresh new feedback on. We'll have to see.

Tim's convinced that even though I'm way behind on where I wanted to be on the novel, that i can still get it in shape in time for that contest (deadline at the end of the year). He claims he'll drop all his own writing to help me "revise like a madwoman".

He loves me. He really really does.

I have a couple of collabs with two of my favorite writers out right now, and I have this feeling they're going to come back while I'm up to my elbows in all these other projects. Heh. An embarrassment of riches! Yay!

I love being jazzed about writing. Is a great feeling!

Final writing news of the day: Polyphony 3 (which my story, "Restoration" is in) is available for preorder! Go forth and consume this exciting anthology! I can barely wait to get my contributor copies in my greedy little hands! Check out the sleek graphite cover! And, if that wasn't enough to make my day, I'm mentioned by name in the Acknowledgements!! And it's mighty fine company that I'm in, too, both in the acknowledgements and in the anthology as a whole.

Ooh, I'm all excited about my Polyphony sale again! This rules!

Love me some writing buzz.