Every now and then I get a nice jolt in the brain that tells me why I do what I do. Elizabeth and I took a trip over to Raleigh's Pullen Park yesterday so we could drop off her check for the pottery class she and our buddy Holly (Craft Spice) are going to take in January. We brought Whit and went for a walk, said hey to the ducks, and had a nice chat. Afterwards we went for a drive in the old neighborhood across the street from Pullen Park.

The name of this neighborhood is Cameron Park, and we've been driving past and through this place for the past couple of years, dreaming about one day owning a house here. The neighborhood is almost a century old, and it's quite cool -- lots of trees, and massive, kick-ass houses. I really like the houses on slides 15 and 25 on the slide show of this page. (What are those kinds of houses called? Are they Victorian? I'm a numbskull when it comes to architecture -- I just know they look cool as hell).

At first we were thinking of some day making a go at owning a Bed and Breakfast there, but the people at Cameron Park Inn beat us to it. Plus, I can't say I'm really crazy about a bunch of strangers traipsing through my house all year long...

So we were cruising up and down the streets, craning our necks to see all the houses, and Elizabeth started talking about us buying one of these houses when I get my first good book deal. Not "if" but "when." What can I say? (Other than "I love this woman!")

I got pumped up, and remain pumped up, to the point where I'd be willing to learn all I can about remodeling and fixing up houses (a lot of the houses are getting run-down, as the population ages and can't keep up with the maintenance). I have some experience, back from my college days of living and rebuilding the legendary condemned house (another long story), but I would really need to immmerse myself in that stuff. If you know anything about me and my aversion to this kind of work, that is saying a LOT (I don't like messing with stuff I don't know inside and out).

But as Elizabeth said, if I'm writing fiction all day, I'll need a break from it at night, so I can work on the house then. And we'll have to have kids at some point in there, too.

But I'm thinking by 2005, I'd like to be looking seriously at the houses in Cameron Park (even moreso than the over-priced houses in Chapel Hill, where we were initially thinking of living, Some Day). So I've got to get cracking on my fiction, with the goal of owning a cool old house where all our family and friends can come crash and hang out, and not be crowded! I can't wait. Just have to keep on working hard and dreaming big. Later!

Now Playing:
"B-Sides, 1990-2000," U2

Stories out to Publishers:
19

Today's Words:
500

2002 Words:
146,500

Today's Quote:
Before starting the 7:20 a.m. Mass, Father Joshua McDowell glanced out at the rear entrance to The Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii and nodded at the armed soldier standing there. The tall young woman at the far end of the main aisle, almost invisible in her shifting camouflage fatigues, nodded back at him. Her blue-black pulse rifle gave off a tiny red blip of light, the same color of light given off by the twenty-nine ships that fell from the sky last November, just before crashing to Earth.

Lord, Joshua thought, peeking out at his sparse congregation and their gun-wielding guardian. What has our world come to?