Things are picking up 'round here, so it's probably a good thing we're getting some fairly decent sleep in the Jasper household. Of course, "decent" is a relative term. And by "getting" I mean the sleep I got last night.

It's a day-to-day thing when you have a four-month-old who is prone to colds and ear infections. Poor Mitch slept last night -- the whole night -- in his swing. He's got a good ol' head cold, and he's snotty as can be (in a runny-nose kind of way, that is). And let's not even talk about Tuesday night, when I had to take him for a drive in the car at 10 p.m. to get him to sleep...

But anyway, as I was saying. Things are picking up. I've got the PDF of my Doorway novel sitting on my hard drive, fresh from Prime Books. It looks fantastic (I just printed out the first chapter front-and-back here at work -- don't tell!). Somehow, putting a bunch of words in a nice font, aligning both sides of the text so you have a nice column of words running down the page, with all the italics and scene breaks added (with a nifty little curlicue) really makes it look like you've written something awesome.

I just hope my words live up to the formatting!

I'll know for sure this weekend, as I dive into my copy-edit of the book. So far so good. I keep thinking to myself, "Hey, this is good stuff! Who wrote this again?"

I'm also at the point in the new novel where I'm steaming full-speed ahead, and not looking back unless I absolutely have to. I finished up the evil, evil chapter five yesterday -- a chapter that I got stuck on for a month, I think -- and now I'm a couple pages into chapter six. It's getting fun again, and waking up early to write before work is getting easier and easier, and as a result, everything in the world seems shinier and cooler.

Or maybe that's just the excess of sleep talking... Who knows? Later.