Ah, wow, if only every day could be like today.

(It was my day off, of course.)

I took Heather to the train station this morning, returned home, and pretty much fell right into work. Cranked away on the Bridge novel until lunchtime, then went out to grab a bite, read a bit, and buy a calendar. I got a great one, vintage photos of San Francisco... and January is an amazing shot of the James "Sunny Jim" Rolph Bridge (AKA the Bay Bridge) when the anchorage was complete, but before there was a deck, so it's this mesmerizing, lit-up suspension bridge that's suspending nothing at all. Beautifully suited to the book I'm writing now.

I finished reading Tom Piccirilli's Headstone City, and it's quite nice, a self-aware mobster story with some really well-integrated fantasy elements. I'll be reviewing it for A Certain Magazine, so I'll spare my further thoughts (and my few reservations) for that venue. Now I'm reading Dean Koontz's Forever Odd. I read a lot of Koontz's big thrillers in high school, and a lot of his early SF in college, but haven't read many of his books recently. I did read Odd Thomas last year and thought the narrative voice was very engaging, the ending courageous, and that it was one of his best books overall. I must have mentioned that to my boss at some point, because he asked me to review the sequel (and quasi-review the first book as well, since we never covered it). So far it's very readable, and the characters feel like old friends.

Back home, I lunged into the novel again, each scene more enjoyable than the last. I worked until about 3:30, when I started slowing down, my wrists hurt, etc.

All told I put in about four hours of sitting-at-the-keyboard work, and produced 9,000 words. Finished the scene with Orville in the train station, and Bridget dealing with the muggers, and the guy trying to carjack Arturo, and worked in some foreshadowing of stuff to come. Then I got into the next chapter, in which Ismael receives visitors, most of them unwelcome. I know what happens next (not just in the vague "this event must come to pass somehow" sense, but pretty specifically). I'm really jazzed about writing it. I feel like I picked up a lot of momentum today. When it's going well, I have trouble stopping myself from writing, I'll close the notebook or the word processing file and wander off to do something, and wind up coming back to tap out a few more lines or set up a scene or go back and insert a bit of foreshadowing or necessary backfill, or just something cool that I realized could be slipped in. One of the nice things about a novel is having space to include stuff just because it's awesome.

Anyway, I picked up Heather after work, and we spent the evening in pleasant langour, pretty much, reading a little, watching Lost. Which I still like a lot, but which is also beginning to annoy me with some of it's really illogical shit, like the fact that they used a full container of ranch dressing for target practice -- they can't run out to the store and get more! -- or the way nobody seems to realize that a bunch of heroin could have medical applications and should be given to the doctor rather than destroyed. I mean, they're stuck on this island, somebody is going to get cancer or internal injuries and they aren't going to be able to do shit for them but ease the pain, right? And now they can't even do that. But, hey, it's got giant monsters made of smoke, and that mysterious-withholding-of-info thing they actually do quite well, so it's all cool.

Pretty much a perfect day. I am happy and productive. Those two things go well together.

We went to the gym on Tuesday night, and had a nice workout. We're going again tomorrow night. We seem to be restraining ourselves from eating like total pigs. This year is really off to a fine start.