Wow, somebody did a whole long Wikipedia entry on my first book The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl! How flattering!

Our landlord hired some guys to defoliate the yard. Which sounds drastic, but basically the plot of land in front was an impassable thicket of dense greenery, and now it's been hacked to the bare dirt. I dunno what the ultimate plans are, but it looks ripe for landscaping. Hope he does something pretty. He also had them trim back the overgrown everything in the back yard, and our kitchen is now incredibly bright in the mornings, because the dense screen of parasitic vines strangling the palm tree right outside the back window? It's gone. We can actually see the tree's trunk, and the sun just pours in. This is unprecedented, and welcome. Though it reminds me unpleasantly that I'll probably have to trim back the evil plum tree at work soon. (Because that's the kind of work senior editors do!)

I don't have heaps to report. I'm about 4,000 words into writing Dead Reign. That's almost 5% finished! Heh. It's going well so far. I figured out a lot about the plot on my day off this week, and I know pretty much exactly how to write the next ten thousand words or so. As long as I can see reasonably far ahead of where I am, and have an idea of where I'm headed ultimately, I'm happy. Soon we'll encounter the revivified mummy of John Wilkes Booth, and Marla will acquire a valet (somewhat against her will) to help her prepare for a fancy dress ball (very much against her will), and Death will come to town and stir up some trouble... it's going to be pretty awesome. I'm looking forward to writing it.

Besides that, life is quiet. We're between issues at work, so I'm just plinking away, editing interviews, starting to lay out the June issue, etc. Nothing stressful. I made a giant tasty batch of vegetable soup a couple of nights ago. We should clean the house this weekend, and will probably go see a movie. All very restful and pleasant. Makes for a good life, and somewhat boring journal entries, but hey, I'm okay with that...

We watched season 1 of Big Love, and I quite liked it -- complex characters, a good mix of humor and tragedy, overall very compelling. Last night we started watching season one of Rome, which is also nice. Good TV is welcome, especially in light of the sudden lamentable cancellation of Drive. I was just starting to get into that show...