Spent the weekend getting caught up on a lot of stuff I'd been putting off, like putting hundreds of photos from the past 2-3 years into albums (I like doing that sort of thing, though it took half a DAY) and installing the new towel bars in our bathroom (then ripping them out and redoing it all when I screwed it up), doing some reading and goofing off, but no real writing, and that was a nice break. I needed it, after the chaos of last week!

Then I got an email yesterday from an editor about an upcoming anthology, and I spent the rest of my Sunday studying... superheroes!

There's an anthology coming out that deals with the characters and settings of a gaming universe that focuses on the Silver Age Sentinels, a "classic" comic-book style group of heroes. So I went to Borders, found the 400-page source book, and started taking notes. After a large latte and about 2 hours, I had a story idea.

Luckily, I had three character ideas already, going into my research, so I wasn't overwhelmed by all the details of the world. And they're three characters I've always wanted to write about, so it works quite nicely. And superheroes are fun. Takes me back to my childhood.

The name of the story is tentatively titled "Three Ladies in Waiting," and it takes place almost completely in Empire City's Central Park (which looks and feels a lot like New York City's Central Park).

So that's my latest update. Once again, I've found a reason to procrastinate working on the Blackbeard novel. Sigh... Later!

Now Playing:
"Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," Lucinda Williams

Now Reading:
nothing, really

Stories out to Publishers:
18

Today's Words:
1,400

Words for '03:
25,400

Today's Quote:
The stars were already out, a bunch of random dots too far away for me to worry about. For me, it was all I could do to keep my belly full and take care of the two younger girls from the orphanage. I climbed up the rocky ledge next to our cave entrance and stared at the lights of the city that felt so far away. To the north I saw the big stone finger of Cleopatra’s Needle, where Daisy had seen the four ugly boys in gang colors today, smoking cigarettes and looking for... something. Or someone.

I looked away from the Needle, feeling even colder than before. Only the sight of brightly-lit Olympian Tower on the other side of the park, standing watch over the city like a lone soldier, gave me any sense of safety. If we lost the park to the gangs, we’d have nowhere to go but the streets. Without the orphanage, where we were all too old to adopt, anyway, we had only the park, and each other. Super powers would be a nice thing to have right about now, I figured.