I was really close to calling the whole day a complete failure.

This was the plan, see. I'd spent WAY to freakin' much time setting up Lotus Notes on my non-work machines -- first on my desktop, and then on the laptop that Lizzie had been using for grad school. It took me much too long getting it to work on the desktop, and then once it did and I moved on to the laptop, the laptop kept giving me the always-lovely, always-day-brightening Blue Screen of Death. Windows users know of what I speak.

But I kept at it. I'm a stubborn mofo sometimes. Got the laptop working as a remote computer, with all the software I'd need for work on it. At last.

The next stage was taking it to the beach. A minor glitch -- the place we were staying only had dialup, not the spiffy cable modem I'm used to. But I thought I'd compensated for that, and didn't think it'd be TOO painful going from cable to dialup, with Lotus Notes.

Yeah right.

It took a good 5 minutes to do anything in Notes, working remotely. We were staying at Lizzie's parents condo at Myrtle Beach, a 3+ drive from Raleigh, and we'd just gotten there late last night.

Guess who ended up driving BACK to Raleigh today at noon?

At least I didn't have to go into work -- I got caught up with all my work from my desktop. Can you say Major FRUSTRATION???

But the good part is I got to hang out with our pooch amd get some writing stuff done. I actually did some good agent research, coming up with a list of 20 potential agents, and I feel pretty good about my prospects.

And then, after taking Whit for a long-ass walk, I pulled out my single-spaced copy of my novel The Last of the Hand and spread it out on the floor along with my outlines and notebook and started planning out the sequels and making notes on the first book.

I got through the first 1/3 of the book, and man, I'm happy to report that it's pretty good stuff. It doesn't suck! And as I read the first book I keep coming up with more and more ideas for the next two. It's a lot of fun -- the book is aimed at a younger audience, and it's just the kind of book I'd have wanted to read in my teen years.

So the day wasn't a complete wash. Three and a half hours on the road pretty much sucked, but hey, at least tomorrow, when I go BACK down to the beach again after work, I'll know EXACTLY how to get there!