Ok, some of my friends are starting to email me asking if I'm still alive, so maybe if I update this site people will rest a little easier.

My day job is incredibly busy. If you'd like to see what I've been ring-master to, take a look at Adventure Inc., MUTANT X and this week, I'm diving head first into Andromeda. All these shows are having their season premieres this weekend (in most of the US) and our websites have to be ready for that.

Books: Well, I'm halfway through this chapter I've been having such trouble with. I realized looking at the old outline that I've actually condensed two chapters into this one.... I think it's a good idea, but I'm not sure how it will turn out. We'll see. Maybe I'll end up splitting it into two again later.

Writing a novel is hard.

I got a Tivo. Also, I now have DirectTV (one of those lovely mini satelite dishes). I've been having fun getting it set up to record my favorite programs. It's kind of like programming my own personal network, and as Sarah can attest - it's a little eclectic. One of these days I'll share my top ten TV shows, according to this list. That'll be fun. It kind of forces you to choose priorities for each show, and the final list is a little surprising, even to me.

Books: The next chapter in line for work needs a lot of it. I'm twisting the plot a bit here and making drastic changes to the first draft. It's a little daunting.

One of my coworkers has a personal website too!

Ok, she's not really a coworker. She works for a partner company, or something like that. It's all very strange and confusing. Anyway, here's a link to her site:
Mademoiselle Cynthia Wang

Now you can all go look at it too, and I can remember to add it to my list of links on the side navigation one of these days.

Ok, just another desperate attempt to show the internet audience that I'm not dead yet.

I've had a lazy, yet unfulfilling Saturday today. I keep feeling like I'm forgetting to do something important, but I can't remember what. I think it's left over from the many bizarre dreams I had last night.

That's what I get for borrowing the "Sandman" graphic novels from Sarah, I guess.

Books: Well, on my first pass on this book my reader suggested that I expand this particular chapter. I did so. It was given a thumbs up. I moved on. Now on my second pass on that chapter, my reader suggested that I cut pretty much everything that I added that last time.

Maybe he's fickle... maybe the five chapters I inserted ahead of this one made the second half of this chapter unneccessary. I guess we won't know until the third pass. (Or maybe much, much later.)

Actually, this now-deleted segment was the inspiration for the short story I haven't gotten published yet. I wonder if it's a sign....

Long day at the office that included a "town meeting." Apparently my friends think I'm so cynical that when I ask an honest question during the Q&A, they're all eager to hear what I really meant when we go to lunch.

Books: Well, my writing partner says that chapter 19 doesn't suck. He did suggest taking advantage of the book editor living upstairs. I'm sure in her copious free time she'll enjoy doing more editing.

Yeah, I'm doing a great job of keeping this updated, aren't I?

Well, mostly that's because my dayjob is insanely busy. So all I'm really doing is working and sleeping and eating (sometimes a combination of those.) Even the garden is getting neglected, although I have been sitting out there more just to enjoy it, rather than working in it all the time. Sadly, when the weekend comes, all I want to do is sleep or catch up on weekly chores. How fun is that?

Books: I didn't edit chapter 19 very much on this pass. I hope that's because the chapter was pretty good with its first draft, and not because my standards are slipping. One thing that helped, I'm sure, is that I didn't have to change the events of this chapter - at all. Unlike previous chapters (and subsequent ones) where I'm changing emphasis at the very least, and at the most - well, killing off characters that previously survived those chapters.

Friday night I got home a little early, so I went out to enjoy my back garden (rather than work in it.) I sat there with my citronella candle, reading, and realized the candle wasn't doing a fantabulous job of keeping the mosquitos at bay. Undaunted, I continued reading until it grew too dark.

Did I mention we've had something like 7 deaths from West Nile Virus recently?

On Saturday I went to the beach and enjoyed a little swimming in Lake Michigan. A helpful lifeguard came by to tell us that the next beach over (about 20 feet away) was closed because of high bacteria levels (E. coli) but that they couldn't officially close this stretch of beach because it hadn't been tested.

He just wanted us to know the wind hadn't been carrying the untreated human sewage far enough away from the beaches where it's dumped.

And yet, I didn't stop swimming. (I already knew how Chicago handles its sewage and how blase they are about pollution.)

So here I am, skirting the edge, tempting fate, living with wild abandon
Sitting in my back garden.
Swimming in the lake.
Laughing at death.

Books: Will they ever be done? There just aren't enough hours in the day. I have picked up another reader, though. I'll let you know what he thinks.