This is the last day of the dare. I'm not rushing through to do another 10,000 or so. I've already done 33,000 and some. And it's worn me out -- or maybe the allergy stuff has done that. At any rate, I've done quite a bit of work, even if I can't quite seem to connect with it this evening. I'll probably go to 35,000 but not much more than that.

The book has been a wonder to work on, though. I did the world building by following the plan from a book that I will be using to teach classes starting tomorrow night. It really did help! I'm looking forward to going through it again when I do the rewrite.

Well, first to finish it, I suppose.

Back to work.

I have barely made my 30,000. Not a good day. I had a headache and a wave of depression over things that are out of my hands, so I might as well just give it up. The writing is going well enough, though. My MC is in real trouble again, just when he was getting used to things, and just when he was within reach of one of the things he really needed.

And, of course, things are about to get a lot worse for him.

Alas, this is the last day I can devote fully to this novel. On Monday I have to go back to the series -- which isn't all bad, of course. I really enjoyed that series. But working on Ada Nish Pura has been a lot of fun.

I manage to reach just for 25,000 for the third day of the dare.

Then I crawled off and slept in a tub of water for about three hours. Which was good and bad. Now I'm up and awake, but my neck hurts.

And worse... I can't quite get the feel for what I should do here. Well, a quick few lines and then maybe off to bed. I'm tired tonight still.

A very late start today. I'm at 22,600 something right now, which is not bad at all. However, I had hoped to be doing better at this point. Well, I've been saying that all along, haven't I? No matter. I'm going to write for another hour and a half, and then go watch a bit of Cowboy Bebop with Russ, and then back to writing.

I am very happy with this novel. I think I'm annoyed that I'm not farther more because I want to tell this story than anything.

I hurt my wrist playing with Pip. That'll teach me to do anything but write. Not a bad injury, just an annoying one.

I am still writing.

16782

I had hoped to be seriously writting by now. Instead I had web work to do. Argh.

My starting counting is 15690. I've managed a few hundred words since then. Now it's time to get moving!

And... she's off!

12582 for the first 24 hours of the dare.

It's a good count. Even more than that, it's a good story. I have been getting very strong visions of scenes to come. I'm pushing as much to get to them as to get the word count. I'm doing very well.

Of course I should be doing other things, but here I am. And I'm having a good time of it, too.

Off to write. Another few thousand tonight before I sleep again.!

Hello there.

I've been working off and on all afternoon and evening. I'm up to 11,276 words. It's going well! I really like the feel of this one! It's so much fun to have a full new idea beat you over the head like this, and then to have it actually take off and work! I'm very happy! (grin)

7638 in six hours. I'm done for the night!

The story has gone very well so far. It's time to sleep though. I'll be back at it soon enough!

This was fun. But intense.

Hour... what hour is this?
Well, 6190 is the count. It's going very well, but I'll probably head for bed soon. I am getting tired!

3905

Yes, a real slow down. But I got past a rough part. And now on to the next thousand. I think I'll do 5000 and then sleep for a while.

Hour two -- 2542.

I got slowed down by a couple things there. But it's moving. My pilot is down in the ocean of Aqua. He's going to be floating there for a while...

I am in the midst of writing madness. I started Ada Nish Pura for the dare. I'm about 2000 words into it. I don't know if I'll make the dare total for the five days, but the story opening is going very well. I'm happy so far.

An hour and a half into it and I'm at 2097.

Off to write more...

Well,it took me all night but I do finally have a submission ready to go out in the mail today. Good. And I just updated my progress page on my writing journal so that I remember when it went out.

I wrote on ly a few hundred words today, but that's all right. I just looked and realized that I've already written over twice as much as I have in any March of the last four years.

I did manage to complete a rather inane little short story, at least. Less than 2000 words... I don't do that very often! It's in the pile of 'to be looked over and evaluated later' stuff.I might work on it again, and I might not.I do need to write a few good short stories, though. I feel like I'm running out of them!

Time to go do the last of my work and get to bed!

I love worldbuilding. I'm having a great time with Ada Nish Pura, the new novel. (And yes, that does mean something, which the reader will learn very early on in the book.) I have the world mostly laid out, including a map. (I do mine on computer. I don't have the skill Holly does in drawing them out. Or the patience.)

I have very nearly everything but the names of my characters. I'm ready to fly, I think...

Writing wise, it was another low key day. I'm giving myself a rare 'rest' until the March Madness (27th-31st) hits. I hope to get a lot of writing done during that time. Right now it's just odds and ends. I'm going to edit a short story or two tomorrow and the next day and get them out. Beyond that, I really don't have much to work on except for class notes and the outline work for the new novel.

And that, by the way is what I'll be working on for the last five days of March. Something fun and completely different from The Quest for the Dark Staff series. I'm not bored with the series, by the way... and I don't want to be. I don't want to rush through any of the books just because I'm tired of working on them.

So with luck the new book will go well. I'm having fun with the research for it, and I've a couple hundred note cards done of little things I intend to use. Right now I'm working out important words that a group of people about to rebel would 'create' so that they couldn't be understood. Not an entire language, but a supplement to it, so that when the attack did come, they could give orders to their own people without having anyone else understand. These are fairly high tech people...

I just made a map. Not a good map, but it does give me some idea of territory disputes, where the four clans and two neutrals overlap. It also allows me to see where I can place my two 'secrets.' Next step is water and air currents. And I should do a little world building for creatures.

But all in all, it's going very well. I hope the story comes through for me. It seems pretty strong in my mind, but then I've had that before and had it not quite follow through as well as I hoped.

Okay off to bed and language creation.

And here I am, early for a change. We were out of the house for a few mintues today. It's thrown me off completely. (grin)

Have you ever had anything hit you out of left field and you don't quite know what to do with it?

We went to my parents' house today. My mother has been in a nursing home for a couple years. My father decided to sort through things because the state will get the house if he dies. He'd put together a package with a bunch of pictures of me, old report cards (what a shock, they were talking about my lack of handwritting ability back in 2nd grade), and some other odds and ends.

Then he said something odd. He said he had some letter my mother wrote to her mother while she was in the convent.

Russ, thank God, turned to him and said "While Colleen (my mother) was in the convent?"

He said yes, and that he'd have to get one of my mother's sisters to go over them.

My mother was in a convent?

I think I'll just go take a rest now...

Just a quick note. I mean to be in bed about an hour ago, but I've been trading emails with my editor in Australia... (grin) Now that I have some idea of what's going on, I can rest a little more on the cover art. I feared I would need to have it done right away, and the weather hasn't been good enough to get the picture I want. This is for The Good People of Coralville. We just went through the first round of very painless editing. I expect the next round (grammar) to be a bit more rough. (grin)

But the timing was very good, having just finished round one with Brendan's Song.

But now... I am off to bed...

I want to leave the novel for a day or two, so tonight I'm just playing around with some other unfinshed pieces and see if anything catches me for a few days.

I'm tired. Really tired. And my shoulders ache -- that happens after I've finished something long and relax a little.

I could sleep right now. How odd. I think I'll go relax for a bit, write some on the Visor. Rest...

I have just typed The End

But It's not, really. I have one more run through ahead. I've lost one character in the crowd, forgotten to account for two others. I realized little bits of 'worldbuilding' as I worked that I am looking forward to adding in. And I'll have some clean up to do, I'm sure.

Still, the completed typed into the computer draft is done. I started it on the 26th of February, so that's not bad at all. About 24 days, since I'm still on the 'night before' word count. Haven't been to bed yet, after all. So that's a bit over 3000 words a day, just on this piece.

Aubreyan (book 1) came in at about 83,500. Brendan's Song is about 76,500 with a few thousand words more of addition. I might get a bit over 80,000. That's not too bad. I wonder if the next one will be shorter or longer? I'm hoping for a few days of ret between them, though.

Well, maybe not rest. I have other writing I want to get to. I'm hopeless, you know. And I have the March Madness coming up.

Time right now to put it aside for the rest of the night, though!

Today is catch up on web work day. A bit for Ecity, a bit for Estand, and now the inevitable agenda.

I think, given half a chance, I will have this draft of Brendan's Song done before I go to bed, whenever that may be. Finish it, set it aside for at least a night, or maybe even two. Then the final rewrite and off it goes.

I've been fascinated by the difference in what I do and what a profesisonal like Holly goes through. While I'm frantic sometimes, I'm not under the duress and pressure that she is. She has an obviously good and demanding agent to please before she even gets to the publishing house. I've seen her go through hell over proposals, rewrites, and copyedits from hell. I've had some stress at various points, especially over rewrites -- but nothing like that.

Nor do I have the hope of making the money she'll make, at least not as long as I stay in epublishing. I have an outside hope that one of my books will take off in sales, but even then it's unlikely I'll make as much as she does in a single advance.

And there is the question, staring at me again: Do I want to go through that kind of hell for the money and the fame? Yes, there is far more fame attached to having a book on a shelf at Barnes and Noble, and I think it would be neater than hell to see my name there... But I'm not good at pressure when it's associated with writing. If I sold anything to print, it would most likely have to be an already completed work that an editor happened to find interesting enough to buy. Selling by proposal just sounds like a receipe for disaster with my mind set.

In the end, it probably just means I'm not professional enough to go that route. Maybe I'll have a change of heart -- it's happened before in other ways where writing is concerned. But for now... I'll skip the pressure as much as I can, and just see if I can't improve my craft before I worry about whether to try for the next step.

Although that's not saying I don't send material out to print publishers now and then. You never know...

An 'early' post for me.

Russ and I are heading out of town for a little bit this afternoon. He has a freelance job to do... quick follow-up, actually... in a town about 70 miles south of here. That gives me a chance to just get out for a bit of a ride. It's a lovely bright, but cold, first day of spring. The camera is packed as well as Visor and note cards.

I could have stood more sleep, but my mind refused to turn off.

Anyway, Russ just got here so off we go!

And here I am, another early early morning before I've gone to bed. I got some writing done on Brendan's Song and a lot more done on the notes for the new novel. Ah yes, doesn't this sound like something you've all heard before? I still have about 5,000 words on The Game of Time that I'll have to get back to sooner or later, but now... now I'm looking at a lovely little SF book. It even has some language creation for it. I'm having a great time of it, too.

My mind works this way, doesn't it? Give me something that has to be done, and it will be off working on something else.

Better than getting bored, I suppose.

I'm going to bed soon. I can't guarantee I'll sleep much, but I feel good. I'm almost done with one book, I'm preparing to write what might be most ambitious piece I've ever looked at. I'm excited about it. I want to get to it.

And that means getting done with Brendan's Song. I'm really close. Then I have another run through -- not a retyping this time, just putting in bits and pieces. Close, close, close.

And now it's after six in the morning. Ack... Time to sleep!

I had a good writing day. I didn't get as much done, word wise, as the previous day -- but I made some very good decisions on material to leave out from the original version.

I suspect that I'm about 12,000 words from the end of the novel, but then I'll give it another edit, and I aready know of places to add a few things. I'm not entirely sure what kind of word count I'll have at the end. I would like at least 80,000 -- though even that sounds low to me.

But still... it's a much better story than I could have hoped for at some points along the way. I just need to bring the theme in a little more.

I am also having a great time putting together the material for the upcoming classes I will be hosting at Forward Motion. Those don't start until April 1, at least. Before then I have a rather odd five day dare to get through. I think I know what I'm going to write during it, too -- The notes on it are going very well.

But then I've done that before and not gotten very far, right? Well, I have a better feeling for this one.

But now it's 5 in the morning, and I'm going to go crawl off to bed for a while!

I had a little trouble getting in here yesterday for some reason. Not that I had anything to say, but still... one gets used to doing certain things, and I hate breaks in patterns. (grin)

I am over 52,000 into Brendan's Song. I've actually gotten where I like the story again and I don't feel quite as weighed down by it. Probably 20-30,000 more to go... I suspect closer to the lower number.

It's an interesting experiment, all this work. I enjoy the seriousness of the work. I can no longer just jot words down and say it's good enough for now. There isn't going to be a later to fix this one. At first that started slowing me down because I found myself lingering over every line -- but that didn't help. Most of them didn't need that attention, and it finally came to me that I needed to save that sort of time for the sections that did need serious help. That's worked far better. I have many such places. I'm sure the editor will find more.

Write for a few more minutes and then take a short break, to feed the hordes.

A bit over 5000 words.

Time for a rest. A nice warm bath. Notes on the classes... (grin)

I did 4903 words yesterday. It was a good day of writing, and I really enjoyed it. Today (as I count days -- the time between I get up and go to bed, never mind the date) -- is going well, too. Just about 100 words short of 2000. Excellent. Brendan's Song is finally over the 40,000 mark, and I feel as though I might actually get to the end with it soon. It will take another complete reading, easy editing before it's done, though. I look forward to having it all done!

Back to work, back to work...

Good morning....

I've been working off and on all day. Lots of things going on, including work on the novel. It's still moving, I'm happy to say!

I'm also lining up material for a series of classes at Forward Motion. One set will be on culture in worldbuilding, and the other will be 'After the First Draft' on some basic things you can do to help you enjoy rewriting and editing.

It's good to be up and busy with stuff again. I had purposely stepped back for a little while, but things were dying down at the site with nothing new going on, so it was time to come up with more fun and games. There are some great classes going on, by the way, but I think the site needs more day-to-day fun. (grin) I love being involved at Forward Motion. Holly has really given us all a great playground for writers.

I hope I have the time and stamina to keep it all up. About half way through Brendan's Song, at least.

Time to get back to work!

There!

A break through in the plot, I think. At least a few thousand words that went faster than anything had in a few days!

Yay! Happy dance! 38,000 words! I might yet make a novel out of this!

I think the rest of this novel isn't going to be as much trouble as I've had up to this point. I think from here on out, it's going to follow a lot of the original -- all rewritten, but the plot shouldn't be a problem.

I am so relieved. It still needs work. Even the stuff I'm doing now is going to have to be gone through again. But it's THERE. I believe I will have Brendan's Song done by the end of the month.

And then it's on to Crystal and the Stars... and I know that one is going to be a problem. But I should be ready for it. Brendan's Song just sort of surprised me. Depressed me, too, to be honest. I thought it was a better story when I started.

But I am getting it right this time. And I'm happy with it.

And I'm tired...

I've obviously been slowing down here. There are reasons. I've had a four day headache that has left me with little or no brain.

I need to get moving on the writing again. I'm not sure why I've slowed down. There is no reason for it, except that my brain refuses to kick in more than a couple lines at a time. It's very odd. I get the writing done, it just takes forever! But I think I'm on the last of the tough scenes for awhile. It would be nice to start making some good numbers again.

Oh, I did well with writing yesterday. Lots of fun stuff done, along with a great long discussion about older tv shows in chat.

I have to get to writing now. I hope it goes as well tonight!

Russ got home about 12:30am, totally worn out, but here. He's come up with some interesting new ideas for his career, too. It'll be interesting if he can make this work!

I've done some work on Brendan's Song today, but right now we're playing around with some video stuff. I'll be back to writing a little later!

I am waiting for Russ to get home, still. I've done a little writing. I'm starting to feel the cold come back...

Working on Brendan's Song is an interesting experience, really. I've enjoyed expanding, changing, adapting the story. It's going to take another whole run through when I'm done because I've added a considerable amount of new material, even in this first 30,000 words.

But it has been slower than I like. Not terrible, and I've enjoyed the work I've done so far, but I can't seem to lock down and just work. There seems to so much else that I need to get done, and to be honest it's starting to annoy me. It makes the work on the story feel disjointed because I can't flow with it.

So why am I here instead of writing?

Just annoyed, I think. I've managed about 500 words. I can get back to work now.

I have done the pdf/pdb versions of Vision. Finally. Days late.

I can go write now, right?

Russ will be home in a couple hours. At least the bad weather they predicted isn't here. He's going to be thrilled with the snow he has to scoop to get into the driveway, though...

Well, yes, I got kind of caught up in other things today.

I've actually gotten some work done. I'm trying to reach 30,000 words on Brendan's Song, and it hasn't gone easily, but I'm getting there.

It's late. I'm going to want to go to bed soon, so I think I'll just go write the last 500 words I need.

Later...

Okay. Storm is past. We had quite a good one last night. Nice sized drift across the front yard. I'm not even going to try to get the mail. I missed the one kid who came by to see if I wanted it scooped and because of really bad back problems, I can't do it.

Ah well.

Russ should be home tomorrow.

I have web stuff I should be doing, but I've been putting it off all afternoon and not doing anything at all. I think it's time to open up the WIP and get to work rather than wasting more time.

Although, to be honest, there is something to be said for wasting a few hours now and then. I actually feel like writing now, which I didn't when I first got up.

What I did have when I first got up was a cold so bad that my eyes watered and I couldn't hardly breathe. That wind last night cut right through this poor old house, and I think even Pip has a bit of a cold today!

Time to turn the electric heater on and get to work!

Okay, the agenda is finally uploading...

As long as the power doesn't go out. We're having a wonderful collection of ice, rain, snow, thunder and lightning. Really odd, neat weather, actually. As long as the power doesn't go out! Though if it does, I'll just take my visor and go crawl under the blankets to write to night.

I do have a new story to start, by the way. I'm going with my Cougar series... the ship used to deliver mail, but they've gone beyond that in the seven or so stories I wrote about them. Most are novellas, so this gives me something relatively short to work on. And the opening came to me so clearly last night that I jotted down a few notes.

Thunder again...

I'll upload this and see if we get to paragraphs back yet...

Still no paragraphs.

I'll just go do something else now...

Well, isn't that interest. No paragraphs. I wonder why

Testing...

Happy Birthday to me...

And now it's time to work...

I've messed around. Not really anything important, just did nothing in particular. Took ten minutes to walk from my house to my mailbox because of the ice, with my wonderful dog running back and forth trying to trip me. I don't know why I bothered.

I was really surprised when a couple minutes later someone knocked on the door. There was a woman with a huge bouquet and a teddy bear from Russ. I've posted some pictures at Forward Motion and I'll have one or on my journal. But she'd almost slipped and had a hard time, even on the 'grass' getting back to her car. We're under a winter advisory here. We'll have about four inches of snow on top of this mess.

Speaking of Forward Motion, the group there did a wonderful page of notes to me! That was a lot of fun. I printed them all out for a notebook.

Then, a couple minutes ago, friends showed up with a little cake, a card and a little cake! How nice!

The one bad thing is that I've gotten about ten emails of work for the council agenda... and no 'item numbers' on any of them, so I'm going to have to go through and match up the graphic with some spot on 5 pages of the agenda. I think they should all be from one little spot in it, so that's not too bad. But it is annoying.

I might as well just get to work on it. It really won't take me that long! If I'm not careful, I'll sit and growl and hiss about it longer than it will take me to do it!

And now I am a year older.

Well.

I guess I'll just go write some more. (grin)

I did manage to get a lot of work done today. Agenda off, page updated, did about 2000 words of writing, and it's not even midnight yet!

Close though. In about 46 minutes it's my birthday!

Not that I'm really going to celebrate or anything. Even if I had decided to go somewhere, the weather has turned nasty. So, tomorrow it's a nice day at home, messing around with pictures or something. I will start a new story, though I'm not sure what it will be even yet. That's kind of bothersome. We'll see. Maybe I'll just write something short.

Or I could start a new Devlin book. She's not been doing much lately... and it happens that I have two important stories for her series still. Hmm. Or maybe a Singer and St. Jude...

I just took the dog out for a moment and just about went slipping off into the yard. The steps are coated in ice, and so is the sidewalk. Ack. It didn't look icy, just wet. We've had a mist all day. I see now that we're supposed to have rain/ice/snow for the next couple days.

I get the feeling it's going to be an interesting couple days if the weather keeps up like this.

Worked quite a bit toight. Also worked on Lazette.net... getting ready for a new look. I've liked the stars and all, but that's been around for a while, and I think I need a change. Besides, even I stop 'seeing' the pages when they don't change for a while.

20952 is my closing number tonight for Brendan's Song. And now I'm about ready to head for bed!

Could it be that I'm actually getting something done? I've picked up the kitchen, getting the last of the groceries away. I went out and picked up a few more things off the old computer via the zip drive. It works much better than anything else we've tried. Right now it's copy 2000+ pictures from the old FD91 archive onto the hard drive here. Eventually they will go on a cd, once I get enough of them done to process one. These are all the pictures from the old floppy disk camera. Still some nice material in there, though. I'm copying the trip we took on our anniversary in 1999 right now -- Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, Rocky Mountain National Park. Wonderful week. (Yes, I am still copying those disks. I took a break to do some serious writing, but I'm about to get back to it again.)

Right now I have Brendan's Song open. I think I'm going to get work done on it tonight. Yesterday I completed two new chapters that I think are going to really help the story along.

Current count: 18,630

Russ is off. I'm not sure when he's coming back on Sunday, but I basically have the next five days to fill.

Cleaning up some of the house is first up. It's gotten a bit scruffy. There will, of course, be agendas. Whether I can get them to work or not is an entirely different matter.

Okay, so I'm having trouble getting back to writing. 509 words last night. Struggling to get that many tonight. Part of it is just so much going on, but that should clear up now that the computer is running well. And it is running very well. I just have to get to where I trust it.

I'm a bit over 17,000 words into Brendan's Song. I'm hoping to get the novel word count up to around 80,000 by the end. Yes, a short novel. Right now my problem is making a set of scenes more intense than they were in the original, and at least that means some new writing... though it also means cutting the original stuff, of course.

Still, it's going all right. Just not very inspired at the moment. I fear I'm going to be that way for a few more days.

And then there's the problem of my birthday. I have always started something new on my birthday. I need inspiration quickly....

Although....

I still have The Game of Time sitting there. I don't like the opening. I'm going to scrap everything I've done so far (only about 5,000 words, I'm glad to say), combine a couple characters, change the circumstances of another, and restart it. This might be the time.

Or maybe I'll come up with something else entirely in the next 48 hours or so. You never know.

I have very nearly everything up and running. I can't believe the difference in the two computers. Even the picture is better on the same monitor.

I have not, however, gotten much work done. We went off to get groceries for me for the next few days, and that took longer than it should. But I got some fun stuff. (grin)

Overall, not a bad day.

Russ leaves tomorrow morning and he'll be back late Sunday. I think I'll get a lot of writing done during that time, but who knows? I've thought I'd get a lot of work done for the last few days, but I really haven't gotten anywhere at all.

Of course, now that I have a computer that doesn't have to be restarted part way through each work bit, who knows?

A few minor new computer problems, but nothing I haven't been able to work around, especially since I still have access to the poor, gutted former computer. Which, by the way, appears to be working very well today. I'm beginning to think it just didn't like me.

Right now I'm attempting to properly upload to my journal website. If I can get that to work, I don't think I'll have another problem. We found that neither of the drives wants to read the CDR80s, though the one from the other computer did when it was there... obviously a driver problem. It's not having trouble with the CDR74s though, and I have most of my stuff backed up from the first of the year on those. It also had no trouble with the zip drive, another good thing, since I've been automatically backing up all my manuscript stuff to it.

I think the real problem right now is going to be with the web sites.

Yes, definite probelm getting to the Mavica CD rom drive. We'll have to work that out eventually, too. But over all, it looks pretty good.

Boy am I tired, though! I think I'm going to head off to bed now and let Russ mess with the computer for a bit tomorrow while I sleep.

Well, my.

I've barely gotten 500 words done, but I've had a great time. Getting Front Page to work is proving a little more difficult, though. So I hope people will check here for updates, and realize that I have not forgotten my journal... I just can't get it to upload. (grin) Only a couple real problems so far... one is getting the cdrw drive to work. We pulled it out of the other computer. If I can't get it to work here, I might just put it back in over there. The other thing -- somewhat related -- is that it can't run the program to connect to the Mavica camera... I think. Hmmm.... I think I should hook the camera up and see what it does.

brb

Hi there.
New fast computer. Wow.

Having just a great time trying to remember passwords, how to run Front page, etc.

But this thing is fast!

We did something we probably shouldn't have done tonight. We found a computer at a good price -- twice as fast as mine, and we'll be able to take memory and cd/rw drive from this one. I don't know if I've mentioned here that I've been having trouble with my current computer. It' has to be restarted three or four times a day, often freezing up in the middle of web work, which is far more annoying for me than when it freezes up in the middle of writing. I generally don't want to be doing the web stuff at all, so having to redo it is just far too annoying.

This is my birthday present, since Russ will be gone on my birthday. I'm hoping the transfer goes well.

I spent most of the afternoon working on the city web site. I don't plan on doing any writing until we have the new computer set up to go.

It should be interesting. Let's just hope it goes well!

That's really it for tonight. I pinpointed two problem spots and began filling them both in, expanding a little in ways that I hope will bring out more of the two characters unique abilities. I only wrote a little over 3000 words, but considering how today (yesterday, really) started out, that's not too bad.

Time now to get some sleep, though.

I've fixed the problem, but I begin to see more that I hadn't considered. They're 'upcoming' problems, though. I need to insert some POV chapters to reintroduce a couple characters and do so far sooner than I had in the original work. Still, that's not all bad. I just need a strong plot thread to pin them on.

And so, off to my favorite place to sit and think out plots. The bath tub. I'll take my little notecard notebook and a pen and see if I can't rethink part of this story...

Oh. The assassins. Yes. There's no reason not to bring them back in at this point. I think I can do something with that little tidbit.

0 degrees out with a -14 wind chill. A nice warm bath sounds great about now.

I might be back before I go to bed. Depends on how fired up I get over what I come up with. (grin)

Hmmm. Well now I'm about 300 words short of 3000. I hadn't noticed the story take off.

I need to sit down and see how the POVs have been going or the chapters.

What better way to do that than to make a little single sheet of paper with three columns -- Chapter #/POV/Notes. Now to see what I can do with this laser printer. It's an HP Laser 4 Plus. Russ brought it back home with him. First copy came out well but light. I'll see if I can change the setting a bit. It's fine for what I need tonight, though.

There. That's better. Nice printer! It's been a long time since I've had a laser printer to work with. I forgot how quick they are!

Ah, and there's what had bothered me. A change of POV in the middle of a chapter, and I hadn't noticed. That's what comes of being so ill, I guess. That's a good excuse, right?

Time to see how I can fix this little problem...

The stomach is queasy, but the writing is going a little better. I hope that I can get a good stretch of work tonight, though to be honest I'm dead tired again already. I intend to go for 2000 words and not worry about anything beyond that tonight. I think I'm already close, in fact.

Closer than I thought. About 150 words short of 2000. I think I can go farther if I put my mind to it.

Be back in a few minutes, I suspect.

Five hours later. I feel a little better. I'll do some writing and then go curl up in bed again.

7 degrees. -15 wind chill

Flu.

I've been curled up in bed all day, except for the times I had to rush to the bathroom. I get the feelingI will not be doing much today.

And this just in

... Wind Chill Advisory In Effect For This Morning... Cold Temperatures... Running Below Zero In Most Locations... Coupled With A 10 To 15 Mph Wind... Will Create Wind Chill Values Around 20 Below Zero For A Time This Morning. Temperatures Should Warm Enough Late This Morning To Allow Wind Chill Values To Climb Into The 10 Below To 15 Below Zero Range.

I'm going to bed.

Uhhh....

ShadowKeep just decided to take a short story from me -- Finding the Crossroads.

First, I have a poem up at ShadowKeep

Second, I've spent most of today messing around with printers, scanners, and moving things on shelves. I think we have at least achieved connections to both printers. The scanner is iffy. But it's good to have a fast laser printer again, rather than just using my color photo-quality one.

Now to write things to send to print publishers so I can make good use of it.

Time to get to work again...

It took me forever, but I've gotten very nearly 2000 words written. They were not particularly hard words. It wasn't a difficult scene. I just could not write. Well, it happens now and then, even to me. I did get enough work done that I don't feel like a total slug. So now I can go rest for awhile and hope I do better tomorrow.

Today is one of those days where I just can't seem to sit down and write. I even think I've gotten most of my work done... but suddenly faced with the idea of writing something, and I'm very tired, bored, ready to call it a night.

But I'll write anyway. Probably not a lot today, but that's all right.

We're having a major snow storm. This is the first one of winter; long overdue. The really good thing about getting a storm this late, though, is that you know the snow won't be around for more than a month. We've had these kinds of storms in October and now seen the ground again until April.

Okay, I have Brendan's Song open. Time to either get to work or go take a nap.