I got a nice fan letter a couple of days ago, from somebody who really felt their life changed for the better because of my work, and I realized: that's what's important. Making an impression on readers. Not award nominations or bestseller lists or anything like that. Just writing your heart out, and reaching your readers. It's easy to get caught up in all the other stuff, so it's nice to be reminded of the real priorities. To make somebody feel the way I felt when I read The Talisman or More Than Human or Memory and Dream -- that there's a larger, stranger, far more interesting and complicated and wonderful universe out there, and that it's worth exploring.

So that's what I'm going to try to do.

I feel gloriously re-centered.

Heather and I watched the early election returns tonight (or, as we call it, the thinking man's superbowl), and The Daily Show coverage, and as of 8:15 p.m. as I write this, there is (obviously) no winner and no end in sight. I was getting tense sitting on the couch, though, so I'm taking some time out to write this, and answer e-mail, and read Flytrap subs. I'm not a particularly political animal, but I do like voting (it makes me feel more justified in complaining when I had a part in the process), and I do have some fairly strong preferences about this election. But I've waited this long to see what's going to happen, so I can wait a little longer.

My buddy Scott loaned me a ton of good cowpunk to help me in my Rangergirl revising. So I've got some Whiskeytown, and early Jayhawks, and Son Volt, and Uncle Tupelo, and Caitlin Cary, and Ryan Adams, in addition to my old standbys Wilco, the Old 97s, the Two-Dollar Pistols, and selected Ween. I love me some insurgent country.

Plans for this week:

Do the heavy lifting on Rangergirl revisions. That's what tomorrow is devoted to, since it's my once-fortnightly day off. I've got a couple of fairly major scene overhauls to do, and that will happen tomorrow, in a coffee-fueled orgy of typing. (Forgive the hyperbole. I'm trying to make the act of sitting alone in a room at my computer sound somewhat dramatic.)

Send out Flytrap subscriber, contributor, and review copies. (A couple of review copies have gone out already, but there are more to go.) That will happen, well, on various evenings and this weekend.

Finish reading Flytrap subs and finalize a Table of Contents. That should happen before the end of the week (possibly before the end of the night, if I get my productive-mojo on).

Watch The West Wing season 3 on DVD (the first disc is coming from Netflix for Thursday). Is that the season when it started to suck? Or is it still good in that season?

Enough of this for now. Time to break some hearts. Er, I mean, time to read slush...