Today began as one of those inexplicably difficult days, where the ol' brain chemistry isn't bubbling as vigorously as one might like. I woke up feeling gray clouds in my head, and even simple actions like making coffee seemed to take a herculean effort. I thought it was going to be a bad day. But the sun is shining like crazy after several cloudy days, and I listened to some happy music in the car. (I have a playlist called "Happy Music". It's not all resolutely upbeat stuff, but it's all stuff I can't resist singing along to, and singing is a proven way to improve one's mood. That's the truth! It's a scientific fact I remember hearing or reading about somewhere!) So by the time I got to work (where there was some chaos happening as soon as I came through the door) I felt reasonably well-equipped to cope, and now I'm feeling quite boppish.

The weekend was fairly nice, and less busy than I'd anticipated. On Saturday we had an appointment to meet our caterers, and then my writing group was going to meet, but writing group rescheduled and the caterer canceled! So now we're meeting with the caterer next Saturday, and will probably wander over to Potlatch after that.

So what did I do with my suddenly-free weekend? Went up to Berkeley, where I checked out the newly-relocated-and-expanded Comic Relief, then hung out reading in Au Coquelet. We played video games. Heather worked on craft projects. We watched episodes of 24. I tried and failed to read two books given to me for potential reviews (both small-press offerings written badly enough that I couldn't get past the awkward prose to see if there was anything else worthwhile in the stories; I'll refrain from mentioning the titles to spare the guilty). We had delicious brunch on Sunday. But the most significant development was me finally getting into novel-writing mode. I spent most of Sunday walking in circles and mumbling to myself, saying "Northwest passage!" and "Echo!" and "Yes! The 6th and 7th worlds!" and "Fort said the same thing" and "Into the briar patch!" I suddenly understand so many more connections in the Bridge novel. Unclear motivations now make sense. Interrelationships are more complex. I have more cool ideas than I could have hoped for. It could be a very wonderful and awesome book, and it's about to eat my life and appropriate all my available mental cycles for the next few months. I shouldn't be allowed to operate heavy machinery or cook on an open flame while I'm working on a book, because I'm incredibly distractable...

Oh, yeah, here's a cool thing: Little Gods is now available in it's entirety as an e-book at Fictionwise.com. So if you haven't read it yet because ink-on-paper is oh-so-yesterday, now's your chance to read it in phosphor dots or the local equivalent.