Sweet. I actually accomplished the two writing goals I'd set for myself at the end of this weekend! I finished up the final revision to my newest story, "Painting Haiti," and got it off in Saturday's mail, along with a couple other subs (total stories out = eight!).

And then, just now, at a quarter to nine on Sunday night, with Pearl Jam rocking in the background, I finished up a really strong revision to "The Last Jack," the SF play I'm working on with filmmaker Aaron Vanek that's based on my short story "Unplugged." The first draft of this story was actually written WAY back at Clarion, in '96, and I feel like I know the two main characters like old friends. The story was originally an homage/pastiche, a weird mix of William Gibson and Raymond Carver. It was a lot of fun to write, and while it hasn't aged as well as I'd have liked (it's a death-of-cyberpunk story), I still really like it, and I'm glad it'll be in my upcoming short story collection.

I'm insufferably proud of myself for accomplishing these two goals because I had to push pretty hard to finish them, and I've had a bit of a slump, writing-wise, for the past month, what with all the stuff going on in my life with work and the baby on the way and adjusting to all that.

I'm also incredibly excited because I can now focus ALL my attention on the baseball novel. I'm dying to start work on the outline and getting all my notes ready by the end of the month at the latest, so I can jam non-stop on this sucker. I still have a pile of research to do, but it'll be fun. Plus I can watch "Eight Men Out" and "A League of their Own" and "The Natural" again on DVD and call it research. :)

Whew. All in all, it was a great weekend. Elizabeth is feeling better, though she still has moments of queasiness. We (well, I) did a lot of work on the yard this weekend, after Lizzie picked up two trees and three bushes for me to plant. I got everything planted and watered, cut the grass today, and still found time to get some writing done. We even took a trip out to see my parents and sister in their un-AC'd house, and got the car tuned up. 'Twas a good weekend. I hate seeing it end. Later!

Now Playing:
"Lost Dogs," Pearl Jam

Now Reading:
Iowa Baseball Confederacy, WP Kinsella