Down to nine days left at the current Day Job. Yep, I gave my notice last week, because my friend Lynne hooked me up with a great position as an "Information Developer" at her company. And just in time, too -- tomorrow is our CEO's last day, along with our chairman's final day. I'm finishing up all my support stuff, winding down my QA roles with the release of our next version next Monday, and finishing up all my docs before my last day, Friday the 10th.

It'll be nice to be a writer again, instead of doing three (or four) different jobs simultaneously.

And right about the time I made the decision to leave my current job -- a job that was really draining me, with its long hours and unending workload -- I started back up with my fiction writing. That's been a tremendous, wonderful feeling.

I've actually changed my plans to try and submit both of my novels-in-progress right now, so I can focus on the current novel. I want to get that book as good as I can possibly get it, then move on to the next one. I'm not so good at jumping around from project to project (though I'm really itching to get to the craziness of the Sixteen Miles novel).

So I'm working hard on tightening every sentence of this novel, getting it where I want it. You could make yourself crazy, going over the same chapters over and over again, but those first three have to be as tight as possible.

I think I'm almost there. I'll know better tomorrow, around 5 a.m. -- back to the early-morning schedule. My brain just doesn't work well for fiction-writing after the sun's up, it seems. Later.