People!

SickWatch is over for me. I ain't sick no more, except for this dry cough, and it ain't nothin', really.

Go read "Haruspex", online now at Shadows of Saturn. For those of you who've read "Pale Dog" (and the smaller subset of you who read the Frog novel in its first draft), this is a tale about Marla before she ran the city, back when she was just a lowly freelance sorcerer, and before she was friends with Rondeau (though they did have something of a working relationship...). Hope y'all like it. I kind of like old-school Marla, with her anger issues, her rather reckless use of magic, her fondness for extreme and immediate solutions... I've actually got ideas for a novel or two set after she came to Coalhaven and got involved in the magic game, but before she took over as chief sorcerer. Dunno if I'll ever write them. Depends on if I sell Blood Engines, and on whether the series seems to have commercial legs. Anyway, go, read.

My story "Lachrymose and the Golden Egg" from The Journal of Pulse-Pounding Narratives 2 is gonna be recorded for audio by the good people at Escape Pod. Thanks to Greg for pointing out this venue! Can't wait to hear what they do with the story. I've been digging the stuff they've produced so far.

Got my first-pass page proofs for Rangergirl in the mail today. Hot damn, it's pretty. They've done some interesting stuff with the internal layout, and it's awesome. I couldn't be happier. I've got about two weeks to do proofreading. So I know what I'm doing this weekend...

Finally got into the Bridge novel again, now that I'm feeling better. Took lots of notes today, and rock and rolled my way through 1,200 words of actual narrative as soon as I got home tonight, without even stopping to eat dinner first. This book could be good.

The weekend was pleasant. Saturday I cleaned most of the morning, and then my writing group came over. We met out on the back patio, drank margaritas, and critiqued. Good stuff. Eliot Fintushel (who used to be in the group, before my time) came over afterward, and he brought his theremin. He's been playing it for about 4 months, and he's good! I didn't realize it was possible to get anything other than "woo woo" sounds out of a theremin, but he played real songs! Eliot and the group hung out in the living room for a while, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine and chatting. He's an interesting guy (who recently signed on with my literary agent, and had a book accepted by my editor!).

I'm reading Caitlín R. Kiernan's new collection To Charles Fort, with Love. Wow, I love her writing. At her best, she just knocks me out. "Standing Water", "Onion", the new story about absinthe, they're all amazing. Should be a fun review to write.

And that's it for now. I've done the diligent responsible working-on-my-book thing already tonight, so I can feel free to lounge and languish and generally enjoy myself for the next four or five hours until I tumble into bed...