Excess
June 6
Just quietly working, these past couple of days, at the day job and at home. Last night I did a nice scene on Rangergirl, the sort of scene you can't do in a short story -- a little character development, a little bit of turning up the heat, setting up for future payoffs, but mostly just fun, enjoying the room to stretch there is in a novel. And tonight I went out, thought a lot about fiction and technique and my goals as a writer, and when I got home I wrote a bit more of my completely loony Excess story, which I haven't touched in weeks, and it's much closer to finished, now; nothing left but the siege engine scenes.
Oddments: I queried a magazine, and they said yes, so I get to write a review of Coraline, longer than my reviews for A Certain Magazine. I'm looking forward to it; I have lots to say. I'll work on that this weekend, I think, in my less-than-copious free time... I found out my story "Dancing Shoes" is going to be the lead story in the July ish of Champagne Shivers... I sent "Ever After Book Shoppe" off to Slow Trains by e-mail, it will appear sometime, I forget when... Strange Horizons is holding another fundraising drive, this time with prizes for the donors, including our chapbook, and all sorts of other neat stuff. Go give them money, so that they may continue to give me money; you see how it works?... I answered some Star*Line submissions tonight at Au Coquelet, didn't buy anything, though there was some good stuff; just not must-have-good... I had a funny interaction with the barista, when I took my coffee cup up for a refill, he filled the cup and took my money, all without a word spoken, then came back and said (more or less) "You see how smooth that was? No talking, all with gestures. Why can't the world always work like that?", which was, ironically, the most words he's ever said to me... I saw a punk in the BART station, long dirty blonde hair, shiny boots, black clothes, and a razor scooter with (I think) dark green wheels, and I thought, if I looked like that, I could ride my scooter in this neighborhood without getting beaten up... but it's not worth looking like that... I miss riding my scooter... saw a funny sign in the BART station, a Keep Oakland Beautiful ad, that said "Sure, you can accidentally drop a tissue in the street. But a couch?"... we got the Buffy season 2 DVD last night, and watched about four episodes, yum, so many more to see, and I haven't ever seen most of them... don't know if I'll have time to update this weekend, I have work I need to do, and Heather and I are working out and going out tomorrow night, going to a party on Saturday, so maybe Sunday, if I'm so inclined. If you don't hear from me, have a nice weekend.
Words written since February 1, 2002: 80,770
Words written since last entry: 2,650
Send me a statue of the God of Excess. He looks sort of like Buddha, but in a Tom-Wolfeish white suit, with mustard stains on the fabric, and his grin is more smarmy, sort of like the Buddha crossed with Larry Flynt...
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