(Written last night but not posted 'til today -- curse the blessed lack of Internet on my laptop!).

Oh crap, it doesn't get much better than this! Elizabeth and I are chilling out at the beach with Clarke, it's about 6:30 p.m., and I'm hoping we'll be heading off to the House of Blues soon for some tasty Cajun food and brews and maybe some music. We spent the day lounging around, reading (I'm almost done with the new Argosy magazine and quite liking it, and Elizabeth agrees that the Jeff Ford story rocks) and me getting some good writing done.

I finished chapter 28, and am ready to dive into 29. After that chapter, which is mostly new stuff and transitionary material getting ready for the big climactic ending, the rest of the chapters are more or less drafted. It hit me yesterday that I'm very close to finishing up this novel! Sweet! Another week of intense focus, and I'll have a really strong draft to send out.

Buoyed by my short fiction collection sale, I sent out a bunch of queries yesterday to nine agents for this novel, so fingers crossed. I also have a couple publishers I want to query directly next week. Things are falling into place, at last. After years of hard work. It's all about persistence, really.

Speaking of the story collection, I've been having a lot of fun putting together the stories for this, and rearranging and tweaking them. For some weird reason, I've been rereading the stories and pulling out my five favorite sentences from each story. I want to do something with them to the Gunning for the Buddha page somehow. Maybe even a little Flash thing that would flash a different sentence every five or ten seconds. I dunno. Just something fun to do, and at the same time it gets me to copy-edit the stories and make sure everything's in order before I send off the file to my publisher.

Very cool times. Maybe I need to stay unemployed for a while... I'm actually feeling better about this situation, thanks to Lizzie's support. For whatever reason, my past 2 job leads didn't work out, and that's okay. Maybe I just need this time to focus on my writing and get my act together, you know? Got to stay cool about it all. Things will work out.

Now, time for some jambalaya!!! Later.

Sentence of the Day:
It wasn't every day you came across someone who -- for all intents and purposes -- was a major player from the spiritual realm, thumbing a ride.

Now Reading:
Argosy, Jan/Feb '03; Jade Tiger, Jenn Reese

Today's Words: 1,200

Words for 2003: 142,700

Today's Quote:
Johndo reached out a short leg and snagged his woolen mat with two finger-toes. He spread it out in front of him and lay on his back on top of it. His right arm twitched once more, then was still.

Father Joshua stood over the Elder, the leader of People that he had known the longest. Iyannoloway, better known as Johndo, lay flat on his back, ankles touching and wrists tight against his thighs. Even his short tentacle-hairs were still, looking more like gray dreadlocks than ropy fingers. His face was gray and smooth except for the vertical line bisecting his forehead.

"We'll think of something, old friend," Joshua whispered, rubbing his chest and stepping backwards as quietly as possible. "You've done enough penance for this life."