That Good Kind of Work

9 a.m.

I check journals before I go to sleep to see if they've been updated-- often this means I check them around 1 or 2 a.m., Pacific time. I check them pretty soon after I get up, too-- usually before 9 a.m.

I am invariably annoyed if they haven't been updated since the last time I looked. It's irrational, but hey, it's me.

The solution, of course, is to read more journals.

9:30 a.m.

I slept on the couch last night so that I'd wake up at a nice, reasonable hour. I don't like using my alarm clock on weekends, because that shrill beeping just yells "Day Job!" at me, and I wake up in this cranky "Will I be late?" mindset. That, or I just realize that I don't have to obey the tyranny of the beep, turn the thing off, and sleep until ten or eleven.

When I sleep on the couch in the living room, though, I wake up when the light comes in through the big bay window. I always rise early when I sleep in a strange place-- some subconscious comfort-level, I guess-- and the couch is a strange enough place to make this work in my own home. It's comfy, too.

So I got up around 8:30, got a yummy bagel, made tea, and read email. I'm going to do some work today (the good kind of work, writing), and stop in here from time to time throughout the course of my Saturday to let y'all know how things are going.

I've been working on "Rangergirl" revisions so far this morning, typing my hand-written pages and making edits as I go, including lots of slashing. I see a way to lop off the whole opening scene and incorporate all the details from the next long scene into later sections without losing anything important. This is good. There's no way this story's going to be short, but it might stay under 10K words, if I'm ruthless. I hope to finish typing my scribbles today (I've got about 18 more pages of longhand to type), and to get through the macro-edits if possible. I want to finish the draft of "Uncrowned Kings," too, and get some stories ready for mailing, and I have to run some errands. I'll keep you posted.

It's a Saturday, with no commitments. I have plenty of time.

4 p.m.

Errands are done. Errands included the deposit of my bonus check, the "Transition Bonus" or, as I like to think of it, "Apology Bonus"-- "Sorry to disrupt your whole life by moving the company to Nevada! Here's some money!" So that's good. I also had lunch, and spent an hour or so at the coffee shop reading Declare. Soon now to do more work...

4:45 p.m.

"Rangergirl" is all typed. It's 15,200 words at this point. The bits I can easily lop off will get it down to 14K. After that... I dunno. We'll see what judicious tightening can do. I already cut the two scenes from the antagonist's point-of-view, even though they were cool-- but they seemed somewhat out of place, since all the other scenes were from my protagonist's p.o.v. It's probably more suspenseful this way, too-- now the reader will know the villain is out there, somewhere, but they won't be sure what he's doing.

I may be done with "Rangergirl" for today. I'll take the knife to it tomorrow.

After many distractions and wanderings-away to read and cook and such, I did some writing on "Uncrowned Kings," 1300 words. In the home stretch, now-- nothing left but the dream sequence (I know, I know-- but it's cool, and short, and perhaps even necessary), and action rushing to the climax. I should be able to get it done tomorrow, after which there will be much rejoicing on the part of me.

Radiohead's Kid A was the music of choice for tonight, and I found it remarkably appropriate for a story about a clowder of cats, and the dark side of the moon, and strange alliances and treacheries, and the woman who is all-unwitting the center of it all... I'm not sure why. The music just seems to fit.

Good night, all. Don't wake up sucking any lemons, if you can help it.