Okay! I've gotten some odd things done today, still managed a couple thousand words on one of my strange projects, and I'm goign to get settled in for some good writing tonight. Russ is off visiting a friend who is in the area for the first time in three years. Then Russ leaves for New York early tomorrow. Everything looks pretty nearly set here for now.

Hard to believe that this is the end of July already, though. I am just squeaking by on work. And I don't really feel much like working at all, I'm sorry to say. I'm not sure why. I think it's an increasing feeling of having done it all before. (grin)

I might just need to rearrange my office or something. That often helps.

Okay, back to work on something...

Well, I can tell this day isn't going to go real well. Pip is sick. I'm sick. My head is pounding, my cats are screaming...

Just the day to escape into some fiction, I would think. It hasn't happened yet, but I keep hoping.

On an odd note, the work on Glory, while it has slowed down to about 500 words a day, is going very well. I've reworked the ending scene yet again, and I think I'm finally getting the feel of it. Time to move past it (or before it -- I'm working backwards through the novel) and get everything in shape.

I have redone the opening to Badlands as well, but I'm still not sure I am there on it.

I need to get to work.

Sunset in Nebraska...

I should mention now, and many times over the next month, that all the pictures I've posted in this blog are going to disappear on September 1. That's when the plug is pulled on the server I have used for years. There is no way I can set up a place to hold all the pictures I've used because the cost would be way too high for that much space.

I might have my own server -- slow connection, but plenty of room -- eventually.

Writing, as can be imagined, is not going extremely well the last few days. I've been working on mostly odd things, with a few hundred words on Glory and Badlands thrown in.

And that's about all I have to say right now. Russ goes to New York on Friday. I need to get myself fired up about something before then, or the four days he's gone are going to be awfully long...

A good friend, writer Dona Vaughn, died of cancer today. I knew that she was very ill. I kept hoping for the best.

I want 2003 to get over with now. I really think this is enough.

Will this post in the right place? I doubt it...

Temperature 97 °F / 36 °C
HeatIndex 115 °F / 46 °C

I am hiding out in my office with the AC on. I have made sure the water bowl for the strays is full. Russ isn't home, and I think he has a class to teach tonight.

Storm clouds are starting to gather which, with temps and humidity like this could be very bad. Temps are supposed to drop more than 30 degrees...