stop. start. stutter.

One of the downsides to this life: I keep forgetting what day it is. I could have sworn I'd updated this thing, like, yesterday.

Anyway, moving onward! My big news this week is that late last week, a friend of a friend put me in touch with James Mallory, who, along with Mercedes Lackey, is the author of the Obsidian Mountain fantasy trilogy. (Which have been, just for the record, in the rotation for my Airplane Rereading^* books for a while.) Mr. Mallory, you see, found himself in urgent need of a webpage, while (my friend knew) I was in urgent need of Something To Do That Wasn't Staring At This Fucking Book. Cue frantic scrambling, lots of fussy design, emails short back and forth, et voila: MerlinScribe.com. I'm so very proud of it, and Mr. Mallory -- who's been a delight to work with -- is very pleased.

* My criteria for Airplane Rereading: long, plotty, entertaining, comfortable and familiar characters, good storytelling. I read so fast that if I don't want to travel with umpty books, I've got to bring the long ones. The top candidate is, of course, Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.

So, you know, if any of you need any web design work done on a shoestring, gimme a holler. I work cheap. And by "cheap", I mean that I can often be persuaded to trade away part of my fee for an advance copy of your next book. *g* (I weaseled an advance of The Phoenix Unchained, first in the next trilogy set in that world, and I am pleased to announce that I think I have found a new Fictional Boyfriend in the main character; he's adorable.)

In other news, and in no particular order:

* Have weaseled a Free Trip to Vegas with a poker-playing friend next weekend, to be the person who reminds him to get the hell out of the poker room and go interact with other adult humans. This comes at an opportune time, as I am putting the final touches on "Shuffle Up And Deal", a short story set at the first World Series of Poker to have an alien playing in the game. It's wacky hijinks about the Old Guard vs. the Young Turks, and it will, Lord willin', be coming soon to a magazine near you.

* A Very Smart Friend may have fixed Sixteen Tons for me, by pointing out what I was subconsciously blocking on. I'm not positive, but I think it might shake things loose. It will, of course, necessitate an entire rewrite of everything I've got up to this point, to the point where I may have to just throw it all out and start over -- but that's okay, as long as I know where it's going. Right? (Right.)

* Despite the fact that I hate writing short stories, I think I may have another one on tap. And you know it's a good one when you have to climb the ladder into your loft library and come down with Augustine's Confessions, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and some Marvin Minsky.

* Someone stole the handicapped hang tag out of our car this weekend. Busted the passenger side window and reached in and took the hangtag. W.T.F, people. I can't even manage to turn that into a story idea; all I can do is fume.