I Just Edited 453 Pages, And Boy Are My Arms Tired

August 4

Hi there. Two days, no entry-- sorry about that. The past couple days are something of a blur, truth be told. I owe everybody in the world e-mail. If I haven't written to you, don't be offended. I haven't written to anybody.

Hmm. On Thursday I went to visit Timprov and Marissa. Very fun. I hadn't hung out with them for a while. I rode BART there and back, my first BART-ride as an Oakland resident. At the homeward end I bought a red rose from a flower vendor and gave the blossom to my ladylove. Heather likes red roses, as do I. We don't mind being big ol' romantic clichés.

I spent the rest of Thursday napping and typing. The napping was because I didn't sleep much/well on Wednesday, and the typing was because I wanted to get my novel manuscript to [Big Name Agent] in a timely fashion. I spent much of Friday typing as well, with a break to have lunch at Mama's Royal Café with sweet Heather.

It takes a very long time to type 300 pages of handwritten edits. I became a blurry-headed zombie of transcription. But as of about 7 o'clock last night, the book is done, all typed-up, finis. I'm very happy with it. If [Big Name Agent] thought the first three chapters were "really cool," he's in for a treat, because the book gets way cooler.

I did most of my typing while listening to music. I wanted to get in a Genius frame of mind, so I played lots of music from the Chapel Hill scene (which is where Ben Folds Five and the Squirrel Nut Zippers, among other fine bands, come from). I owe a debt of gratitude to the Notes From Home series of music compilations, featuring music from the Carolinas and Virginia. Collapsis was also instrumental in maintaining my sanity during the typing-fest.

Last night Heather and I went out on a date. We had dinner at a yummy nice restaurant on Piedmont. Then we went to see The Anniversary Party, which was a pretty good movie-- there were bits where I laughed out loud at length, and Kevin Kline was his usual wonderful stuff. Kline's children played his character's children in the film, and the rapport among them was wonderful.

We came home, and stayed up talking and laughing and so on until about 3 a.m. Very nice.

I rose today at 9:30 and looked over my novel manuscript one last time. It's 453 pages long (in 12 pt Courier). There are probably a couple of typos buried in there, but there are no major gaffes, as far as I can tell. Heather and I went to the Post Office this afternoon and I sent the beautiful thing off. Let's hope the manuscript is met with approval, okay?

I don't think I ever mentioned... my Mr. Li story "Battering Jack and the Headless Man" is going to appear in Speculon sometime. I'll let y'all know when that happens.

The DNA web site rejected one of my stories, with a note that it was "an excellent story," but not right for them at this time. So I'll send them something else, which might be righter.

I'm sending out about half a dozen stories this weekend... Heather bought a postal scale for us, and stamps in assorted denominations. So that should ease the process greatly.

I think I might take the day off from writing-work (apart from getting stories ready to go in the mail, that is). I'm a bit worn out on sitting at the computer, truth be told.

Ta, dear ones. Hope you have a fun weekend.