Cold Spell

It's five degrees below zero at the moment. Patrick and I went mall walking this morning, then ran errands. Patrick picked up a new pair of glasses he just got made. I got some books at Dreamhaven, one of the two local SF bookstores.

While I was there, I found out Terry Pratchett has an unusual form of early onset Alzheimer's, which is terrible news. He is younger than I am and a wonderful writer. I had been looking forward to one novel by him a year for the rest of my life.

Patrick's comment was, the only possible response to news this bad is to treasure every day, even a day when it's five below.

I finished two stories last week. One is about the Republican National Convention, due to happen in the Twin Cities this fall. I expect it will be a lot of hassle and not worth the money the Cities expect to make.

Anyway, I like the story I wrote, which involves a drunk Republican in Mickey's Diner in downtown St. Paul. My Mickey's is not quite the real diner, which actually is in downtown St. Paul, since mine has aliens, and I don't mean Hispanics.

The other story is one of my Big Mama stories. I started it a fair long time ago, but never could finish it, because I kept trying to figure out a plausible explanation for time travel. I finally decided I couldn't come up with one and skipped lightly over the theoretical physics. The story is a tall tale. It doesn't need good physics.

I also wrote the first few pages of a YA fantasy. I'm not sure about it, but I will keep going for a while and see if I begin to like it better.

This is a lot of writing for me in one week. Last year I finished one story. That's all, though it's a good story.