Kid is fed and sleepy, but I'm not sleepy (why, I got four hours of sleep last night, in a couple of chunks), so here I am. This won't be very organized.

When I went to Clarion in 1999, a heard lot of people who'd been to the workshop say, "Oh, Clarion messed with me, I didn't write for weeks/months/years afterward." I was terrified of that happening to me, so I went home and wrote a novel the next month, just to prove to myself that I still could. Likewise I've had a lot of fear that having a baby would totally scuttle my ability to write fiction, so I'm doing the same kind of gestural magical ritual to prevent that -- I actually wrote a short story while we were at the hospital, scribbled in little snagged moments of time when Heather and River were asleep in the dark. I'd slip out of the room and sit on the "lanai" -- the hospital's name for the unheated hallway that runs behind the recovery rooms. It's actually kind of nice, with floor to ceiling windows that have a view of the city and the bay. I'd go out there because there was light, scarf down lunch, read Black Static, and write a little. The story, "The River Boy," is only about 1500 words long, and may shrink when I revise it. I read it to Heather and the kid on our last night in the hospital. It's not about my son specifically, but it's about parenthood, and it's also inspired a bit by the poem Haddayr posted a few days back. Anyway, now that I'm confident I can in fact write (at least something short) in tiny snatches while heavily sleep-deprived and in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar environment, I'm a lot more relaxed about this whole thing.

The first issue of Douglas Lain's 'zine Diet Soap is out, and includes my story "Observer Effects," about superheroes, neurological disorders, and the joy of omnipresent surveillance. (Among many other fine things.) You can get a PDF of the 'zine for free by e-mailing info@dietsoap.org and asking for it!

And... now I'm back after an interval of a couple of hours (invisible to you, dear reader, through the wonders of non-realtime prose!) I'd better make Heather something to eat, then maybe grab an early evening nap myself.