Well, huh. Just wrote a very odd little 1200-word story today about a very large fellow and a ride at the NC State Fair that falls apart. Kind of fun. I've had a couple story ideas floating around in my head, a lot of 'em set here in Raleigh, so it's fun to just blast them out and see how they read.

So far, they've been somewhat surreal, modern stories with a twist of horror in them.

I figure I may as well do some stories for a while, as I'll be proofing my story collection and reading a lot of my own stories. After slogging through King's Dark Tower, I'm ready for the short, sharp shock of a short story (and I'm into alliteration as well, apparently). I may dig out the latest Year's Best Fantasy and Horror antho as well, and finish reading that.

Compulsive list-maker that I am, I've been making a To-Do List for now until or the end of the year (or, I should say, now until the Birth of Drew!). I've got a couple books I wanna read -- Staying Dead by Laura Anne Gilman, Carter Beats the Devil, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque by Jeffrey Ford, and maybe de Lint's Onion Girl if I have time. Maybe Mieville's Iron Council or Powers' Declare. My To-Be-Read pile is daunting, but I swear I'm not buying any more books this year. I swear!

And at some point I need to reread my baseball novel and start revising that sucker. As soon as I finish tweaking the fantasy novel and the romance... I feel like a broken record...

But at least I'm back in the writing mode again -- I didn't get a chance to do much for almost a week, so this short-short story outburst was a nice change of pace. The next story is about a somewhat-loopy, pregnant, tropy wife living in North Raleigh who likes to cook for the homeless... We'll see how it goes... Later!