Clipping along nicely, taking a little break but going right back to it. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Was pleased to hear that my practice session on Rowena this morning was pronounced pleasant by Jeff.  I only mention it because I was thinking to myself as I got super-loud at one point that Jeff really does put up with a lot.

I did not squawk like a chicken, but I did play the “When I’m Dead” song.

Tried to drown Alex at Edmonds Rec Centre yesterday, fortunately I was not successful. I am COMPLETELY out of practice dealing with toddlers. He climbed into some water that was the right depth – and then jumped into deeper water from there; some pleasant strangers handed him back to me, and he was SMILING the little BUGGER as he sank beneath the surface.

Conflikt is over for this year. I am so glad I didn’t go. I am cocooning, and as long as I’m writing I don’t care if I’m being a lazy bum.

The ground is sodden, there’s so much rain nothing is draining. I should probably check local drains, City of Burnaby is asking residents to do that.

I can’t/don’t plot

why am I writing

I have no plot in my life

and yet it’s interesting

things happen

in and out of likelihood

but I was given a wall of words

the day I was born

and some of them are here still

although that wall now sits

at the bottom of a well

I pull and pull on that damned rope

that moves the bucket

bringing water from the well of words

each drop infused

with something odd and viral

but it tastes of home

& home is what I mean to plant

cloud seeding

everywhere

between the stars

and here

between your ears

I honestly didn’t believe I wrote anything yesterday but this morning’s word count makes me a liar.

Reason I adore Paul #46548

He drove all the way back from Seattle (which is where Conflikt is) to partay filkwize with me, Cindy, Tom and Peggy and DOUGLAS who wasn’t DOGLESS.

Petal is so cute with her widdy tongue hanging out of her face. Her fur is so soft I get kinda dreamy and melty when I pet her.

Oh man, that was a really really nice housefilk. I feel… cleansed. Cleansed by harmonizing Unexpected on the fly with Cindy. Happy sigh.

Anyway Paul will drive back to Seattle today and come back Monday or Tuesday.

Weather continues unbelievable rainy but the threatened 5 cm of  oobleck did not occur.

yup, goin backwards

it happens.

It is all part of the writing process.

Visualizing data sometimes takes the form of very strange fiction.

I’m re-reading the bizarre little novel I wrote (Sweetie’s House of Tentacles, a misleading title if ever there was one) when I decided to fanfic my own universe with some slash and now I’m having issues, because I am only now noticing that I very stupidly advanced the series arc therein.

Now I have to either rewrite half a dozen chapters so I can jam them in the novel I’m working on, or tapdance creatively in some other way. “Previously in the Upsun series, in a short porny novel that I’m charging thirty bucks for to prevent people from reading it because it’s essentially slash with a *ludicrous* premise,

yes, even more so than usual!

and published without the assistance of an editor — ” and then fill in the blanks.

Beta readers solicited. I’m in negotiations with someone in the Low Countries, an early fan.

Anyway, I’m re-reading plus editing, and shown below is the dialogue that cracked me up this morning. The book’s a soap opera, but really entertaining; I wrote it immediately prior to starting MMCo.

“Right,” said Marty. “How do you feel about marriage?”

“It’s a complete waste of time and a criminal enterprise with better press than the Pope,” Jesse said, promptly and cheerfully.

I’m not coming anywhere close to making wordcount, but oh well. Life continues and dribs and drabs become books.

I am feeling an Alex deficiency, but also deficiencies in other people’s company. I think if it isn’t raining too hard or too cold today (Paul and I watched wet snow fall from the relative safety of the hot tub at Edmonds pool yesterday, and yes I did swim laps, I didn’t just poach maself) I’m going to do a shop and go to the library and maybe pick up eggs and butter and almonds and hazelnuts and dried apricots for biscotti so I can take some to the housefilk which is ‘replacing’ Conflikt, since none of the Vancouver contingent are going.  Cindy’s hosting on Friday. Paul can’t come – he’s going to Seattle, grr, and the grr is ‘but we’ve been practicing, why can’t he play!!??’. But Tom and Peggy can. So, yay.

This is the second Conflikt I’ve missed since it was established. I’ll go again when 45’s out of office, or earlier if I can put down this feeling that I’ll end up in a gulag mocked by guards over my fat white neediness.

UPSUN final edits almost complete…. 19 more chapters.

Off to Tim Horton’s this morning for coffee and croissants; Jeff was the founder of that little feast.

Our experiment with Sunday Dinner for the kitties is likely drawing to a close – it makes Buster poopy – or so we surmise.

I’ve been editing fanfic all morning. I am obviously quite, quite insane.

It’s quite cheering. We finally dug into that tourtière and while I love it, the Pie Hole will never again tempt us to buy a $38 pie.

Yes, you read that right.

Now the ingredients are choice and all that, but brOJeff was not a fan of the crust or contents, there being something in it that mayhap disagreed with him.

I really liked it, as I think I mentioned, so I get to finish it I imagine.

30854 is the new word count. Plumping up and pruning, plumping up and pruning. Fixing bad verbs and placemarker sentences. Reading it aloud to myself, getting the phrasing right, how would the character say it, how would their upbringing and languages spoken growing up and in university affect their speech. What verbs do the sixers never use, and why is it that they sound so vague all the time? Anyway, not much writing but lots of thinky thoughts.

It’s raining and hasn’t stopped for ages, but at least the wind has died down.

No writing yet this morning, I am having a lazy start.

If you read this blog, send me an email, I’m feeling lonely.

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Got fed steak and mushrooms and rice and veg last night, om nom nom.

Not much else to report, besides gusting to 80klicks and Jeff says bits of the house blew off last night.

Up 14 floors IT’S NOISY. AND GUSTY. Mike says it’s very unlikely he’ll lose power cause we’re right next to a substation.

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Mike texted me that something rather ugly and work related came up, sadly.  I have compounded my sadness by watching the last episode of Fringe. It was sad.

I am not being so lazy as not to write, as one can see from the creeping dial. I am writing a psychedelic trip, and it’s hard to get the tone just right.

Sigh.

Spoke to Dave and went for a walk with Paul yesterday, also fed Paul leftover Chinese food. Heard from Mike; he’s back from whatever rural hellhole in Trumpland he was shipped off to last.

Sadly, the Wayward Sisters intro through Supernatural was not that good. Every time they did the staring at somebody while something emergent is happening – and they did it five or six times at least in an hour, which sucks – I wanted to throw something Nerfy at the screen. Oh well. I wore my hoodie anyway.

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