I have too many books living in my head at once. First, I'm thinking about Poison Sleep revisions, because I'm going to start those in earnest this weekend. (I've done some minor changes already, but the heavy lifting remains.) My editor and I finally settled on a name for the main villain! She didn't like the name I had (Torrance), and I wasn't that attached to it, so we've been trying to find a name that's not too banal or too high-fantasy-sounding. We agreed on "Reave," which has a lot of good associations -- to "reave" is to steal (or spoil, in archaic forms), "rêve" is French for "Dream," it sounds kind of like "reap," etc. Because I'm neurotic in strange ways, I was having a hard time revising when we hadn't decided on a name, so since that hurdle is leapt o'er, I can get down to work now.

I'm also thinking a lot about Dead Reign, and about the changes I want to make when I revise it in August. It's a lumpy first draft now, and there are a lot of sort of placeholder moments that need to be deepened and enriched, motivations that need to be made clearer, plot holes that need to be plugged, coolness that needs to be ramped up. And I'm starting to think about Grift Sense, which is the next book I need to write, and which will be full of gecko boots and howling voids and bar bets... It's a good thing these books are all set in the same world, or I'd be going insane. At least this is prompting me to think about the series as a whole... But it's a little confusing.

Tomorrow we go in for Heather's 3-D ultrasound. (She's dying to know if our baby's a boy or a girl, and apparently the 3-D thing is good at determining sex.) I find photos from 3-D ultrasounds a little creepy and weird, personally, but it'll be neat to find out the sex -- saying "it" when we talk about Pixel is starting to feel strange. The baby thing is rapidly becoming realer and realer. We own a stroller and a crib now. (The crib won't be delivered for a while.) Heather's mom and sister and Mary Anne are planning her baby shower, and we're working on a baby gift registry. (Fear not, I'll link to it when it's up!)

Everything around here is all "Baby baby baby" and "book book book"! That's how this journal is likely to be for the foreseeable future. Consider yourselves warned.