Summery

Gorgeous weather today. I sat upstairs at work, next to the wide-open door, and just enjoyed the breeze. For a while it felt like the long slow center of summer, when there's nothing but warmth ahead and nothing seems very urgent... none of the bite and bustle (or gray lethargy) that I normally associate with winter.

Ferocious Dreamers is a very wintry book (I think of that great line from The Simpsons, when Bart says "And I learned the true meaning of winter!" That's what this book is about, in a sideways fashion). Lots of hail, sleet, freezing rain, and bad weather. The setting is very vivid for me, more integral to the story than is sometimes the case in my work. I'm glad I came back to the novel. I think I just had to wait until it became winter again. I mean, there's no winter weather here, but I watch the news and the reporters in D.C. are getting snowed on, and Boone is under ice, and even Raleigh is supposed to be getting snow... the action in the book takes place around Christmastime, and it just feels right to be working on the novel now.

I've done about 3,500 words so far tonight. I'm not done writing for the night, but I wanted to go ahead and write this entry since I'm between scenes. I'm searching for the perfect music to listen to while writing... the Old 97's doesn't do it, and neither does Juliana Hatfield (though Juliana's Pony might be a good album to try... hmm...). Beck distracts me. The tone of Counting Crows is all wrong (though they'll be good to listen to when I finish up the glass casket story). So I've been rampaging my collection, looking for something that rocks and has high energy, but at the same time won't distract me... something I love, and know so well that hearing it play is almost like hearing music from inside my own head...

I finally got some sense into my head and popped in Fractured Sonic Hyper Fuzz by Agent Ink (I just found out they have a website. Why does no one tell me these things? I even recognize the site design; at least part of it was done by my old housemate Brian). Buy this C.D. They will sell it to you for $7. You get way, way more than $7 worth of rock on this disc. If you live in or around the Triangle in N.C., go see them play live. Good songwriting, good singing, good screaming, good rock. Okay? They've got your poignant, your funny, your can't-get-it-out-of-your-head... this C.D. is rockin' good. Buy it for yourself for the holidays for being so damn good all year. They've got me writing up a storm. I should give them an acknowledgment if this book ever gets published...

Everybody's gone. Scott's off in Goldsboro, our home town. Brenda flew away today. Lynne's off to the frozen waste of Minnesota. I'm here alone with Brenda's cats and Anne's fish (I don’t think I've mentioned Anne; she used to live here, in the Other House On Maple Street). This is an environment conducive to writing, at least...

Back to the ink mines. Talk to you soon.