Gooood morning! I'm working on coffee #2, copying some Clash CDs onto my laptop (now that I've pried it out of Lizzie's grasp, as she's finally done using it for grad school!), doing a couple loads of laundry (guys, quit teasin'!), and starting some work for the Day Job. And it's not even 6 a.m.! What the hell's wrong with me???

Actually, work has been kind of slow, but then all of a sudden yesterday it got busy. I was teaching myself XML and kinda liking that, then I got 2 projects, and since we're heading to the beach later today for a couple days away, I'm jamming hard to finish everything. Nothing like dead times, followed by more dead times, and then suddenly, CRAZINESS! Doesn't it always happen that way? Man...

Luckily I used my "Get Out of Stress Free" Card last night -- Elizabeth had gotten me an hour and a half massage at the local spa, and that really worked the kinks out of my hunched-up body (and no, guys, I didn't get a "Happy Ending," thanks! not that kind of massage!). That was unbelievably timely, even if I did fall asleep and started snoring a couple times. :)

I'm planning on getting some writing done this weekend at the beach. The plan is to get up early Friday and Saturday mornings and sneak off to the coffee shop with the laptop. Armed with a large latte and my headphones, I hope to get some serious work done on the SF novel. My old grad-school writer pal Lee Capps emailed me some excellent feedback on the first 100 pages, as did Andreas B., and they've given me a LOT to think about. In a good way. Of course, I'd have loved it if they said everything was GREAT, but hell, I'm a realist. Nothing good ever came easy.

I just need to stay focused. I've got a short story I need to write before the end of August, and that keeps picking at me, distracting me. And unfortunately, I had to bail out of the Strange Horizons workshop in September -- I couldn't justify the cost AND the additional time off work, and the stress of getting another story written (while trying to revise the novel(s)!) was bringing me down. My feeble brain can only handle so much.

Which is why I haven't been writing in this journal much. There's only so much time in the day, and I've been trying to get caught up on my reading -- still plugging away at the 20th Year's Best. FINALLY finished "Breathmoss," and liked it a lot, if not loved it. Great, great ending that made me look at everything that had happened before it in a whole new light. The writing was beautiful, the setting wondrous, and the plot, for my two cents' worth, was a bit slooooow. But I'd read more stuff in that setting, and MacLeod is becoming one of my favorite writers, having read a handful of his big stories. I hope to read a bunch more this weekend. We shall see...

Have a good one! Later.