For a writer, there's nothing better than a quiet stretch of time in the day to dive back into your world and muck around with the lives of your characters.

I got a lovely chunk of time today after stopping by my folks' place for a while this morning to say hello (and Drew got a ride on Grandpa's four-wheeler!). Drew conked out on the ride home (he couldn't even suck his thumb because of the sores in his mouth from his evil hand/mouth/foot virus he picked up again), so I put him to bed and got to revising.

And now I can safely say that my opening five chapters / eighty pages are essentially locked down. I finally made it through the old chapter five, revising it here and there, and then realized it should be chapter four due to some timeline "issues." Then I had to doublecheck the other chapters to be sure it all made sense... It never ends. But I'm doing my best to be patient.

In about an hour we've got a cookout for our nephew, and I'm hoping Drew will regale us with his rendition of "Happy Birthday" -- he picked that up a few weeks back at a little friend's b-day party. He's getting himself a pretty good repetoire of songs to sing for us now. As soon as he nails the ABC song, I'm training him on REM's "It's the End of the World As We Know (And I Feel Fine)." Should be an easy tune to pick up, I'm sure...

Later!