The weekend was very nice. Saturday we went down to the South Bay for a birthday party and fine conversation. Sunday we hung out on the back patio drinking margaritas. Heather was working on her craft projects (which involved lots of glue, and the necessity of open air), and I was reading The Tipping Point. Interesting book. I'm at that stage in novel-writing where every single thing I read feeds into the novel somehow, so I got lots of ideas about character interactions from the book, and the chapter that dealt with suicide epidemics was especially interesting. I did some work on the novel, too, real writing, and a partial outline. I feel on pretty solid footing now, after a few months of circling the book and making tentative little forays into writing it. Figuring out there was another major character was a big step!

Heather has been invited to join my writing group! (Now our writing group!) Whoo! No more long Saturdays away from her! No more stories she misses out on hearing firsthand! No more driving both ways by myself!

We are in possession of copies of Flytrap 4. (Go subscribe now, and we'll send you copies next week). We went crazy, as we warned, and got a color cardstock cover! Still all black and white images, of course, but now in a lovely ivory cardstock binding. It came out pretty well. I'm always really critical of how the 'zine looks, but, I mean, it's a 'zine, we run it out at a copy shop in minuscule print runs, and it's never going to look like a slick magazine. I'm okay with that. I think we've maintained the simple elegance of design we always strive for. My thanks go out as always to Rob at the Lakeshore copy shop for turning the job around quickly and giving us a killer deal. (Sorry for production-related neepery. Yes, the content is outstanding, the stories are awesome, the poems are genuinely powerful, the articles are funny and thought-provoking... but lately I've been focused on the production aspects.)

I'm looking forward to maybe, possibly (probably, almost certainly) doing some chapbooks in the future that have nice paper, color covers, higher production values, etc. Stay tuned for details (but not for a few months).

For all the many contributors who'll be at WisCon, we'll bring you contrib copies and crisp ten-dollar bills (or wads of singles or something). So you can get your contributor payments and immediately spend them on booze and cheesecurds and books and 'zines.

We finished work on the June issue of A Certain Magazine today. It's a forthcoming books issues, with listings of upcoming books in the US and UK through March 2006, and those issues are always beastly. But, the cover of The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl is included among the listings! Which is neat. Of course, you've all seen it, but now other people can, too...

I had to write an obituary for Pat York this morning. Very sad. I'd heard nice things about her, and thought I might meet her at this upcoming WisCon, but it's not to be. My sympathies go out to all her friends.

The weather is simply gorgeous out here these days. Sunny, perfect temperature, the glory that is summer in the Bay Area when the rains recede. Best of all? The newborn goslings are stumbling and strutting around the lake, and we see them every morning on the way to work, so fuzzy and cute. I love the goslings, truly. They grow up to be smelly ol' poop-producing bread-obsessed geese, but they're adorable when they're new. Soon they'll be holding up traffic around the lake with little goose processions, a mother followed by half a dozen little fuzzy babies. They usually cross in the crosswalk, but they completely disregard the traffic lights. It's pretty much the only traffic hold-up that doesn't irritate me on my daily commute. I told Heather I wanted to bring a gosling home and put it in the bathtub and feed it bread. She told me the cats would certainly appreciate that. I suppose she's right.

Tomorrow, I work. Wednesday, I work. Thursday, I stay home from work, and do laundry, and write, and clean, and pack. Friday, we leave for WisCon. Glorious WisCon! I do hope we see some of you there. We'll have 'zines in our hands and songs in our throats.