Whoo. A three-entry day. It's some kind of a record.

I wrote 5,800 words today, and finished my latest Marla Mason story, "Grander than the Sea." It's set between the events of Blood Engines -- which will be published sometime next year, I hope, or the year after -- and before the events of book 2, Ferocious Dreamers. It introduces a character who is somewhat important to F.D., and offhandedly mentions a major character in F.D., and also has an asylum for criminally insane sorcerers, a sword made from a narwhal's horn, a surfing witch, and a dark deity named Xorgotthua that just might rise, ravening and squamous, from the bay. I'll let it sit for a few days, revise it this weekend, and send it off to the editor of a certain fantasy anthology. If he likes it, whoo! And if not, I'll sell it someplace else. It's got tentacles and banter and homonculi. What's not to love? Writing this story was good, too, in terms of gearing me up for writing Ferocious Dreamers. I feel like I'm in the zone with these characters again.

Heather and I and our nephew and his mom hung out in the backyard this evening. We drank wine (well, the nephew had juice). I pitched the whiffle ball for the boy, who whacked it pretty good with the bat about a million times. (The art of pitching to a three-year-old depends largely on throwing the ball at the bat, which is a moving target). Good times. I also drank margaritas, and read a bit of Widdershins by de Lint (I'm really enjoying it), and washed dishes, and fiddled a bit with layout for Greg's chapbook, and that's about it. Writing as much as I did today means there's not much time left to do anything else.

I'm caught up, for the moment, on writing responsibilities. I haven't promised anyone else any stories. It's a weird and dizzying feeling, having nothing I must do, since I've been writing for various markets all spring and part of summer. I'll probably take a few days to bask, and then start writing Ferocious Dreamers. Idle hands make a dull boy. Or something like that.