Update - Minor News

I am still getting error messages on Blogger. However, I can click through them. Still, I'd sooner not get them. My mail program went suddenly weird in the first week of December. So now I have a new mail program. Usually I cruise along, and my computer gives me no trouble. Now I've had two programs behave strangely within a month. Ah well.

I have now moved on to writing project # 2: revising an essay for Strange Horizon and then it's back to the planetary romance. (How did the essay get into my to-do list? I wasn't happy with it and woke up this morning thinking, "I know how to fix it.")

After that it's back to the novel and the four stories that need final revisions, before they go out.

I envy people with a lot of energy and people who do exciting things -- travel, rock climb, go out a lot... Then I realize that I like a lot of empty time and quiet. Even writing seems busy -- not if it's a first draft written for my own pleasure, but writing and editing against a deadline. I have friends who are unhappy when they don't have a contract. Not me.

P.S. The essay is revised. Now on to the planetary romance.

Writing

I'm not working on anything else, since multi-tasking makes it harder for me to finish anything. Or rather, I'm not writing. When I exercise, I mull over the very wet noir planetary romance and come up with new ideas. But I don't want to begin writing them down, until the line editing is done.

The plan is to finish the line editing Sunday and Monday, send the ms off to the editor, then get to work on the planetary romance. If I push, I may have it done by the end of the year.

We have a winter storm warning for Sunday, which will make it easy to stay home and work. We have a row of huge windows in our living room, with a couch in front of them. It's pleasant to sit at the table and write, while weather happens outside.

At the moment, Patrick is napping on the couch, surrounded by pillows, Jane Austen's Persuasion lying next to him. The radio is on to classical music. Very restful. At some point, I'm going to have to wake him and ask him if we should go grocery shopping before the storm hits.

Writing

I am mostly done with going over line edits of the chapbook collection. The edits have just been correcting typos and my never-standard punctuation. I think I've rewritten only one sentence. I have one more story to go.

I've reached the point I always reach, when what I write seems awful. I simply have to push through. The mood goes away. I quite like some of what I've written. Though I never see the story other people see or the story in my mind, which is luminous and perfect and very funny. A combination of Jane Austen and -- what? P. G. Wodehouse? Scrooge McDuck? Over the top, sense of wonder sf?

I grew up on Austen, Dickens, magazine science fiction, Scrooge McDuck, murder mysteries and 20th century humorists, including P.G. Wodehouse. I assume that's what shaped my own writing.

The Real Problem Is...

The real problem is, I have a headache and don't really want to work on writing, but have to.

Error Messages

I have been getting a lot of error messages on my blog. Of course, it is impossible to get in touch with Google to ask for help. If this continues, I may start a new blog with a link to this one.

A Slight Attack of Grouchiness...

A slight attack of grouchiness, due to being slightly under the weather. I am reading yet another discussion on an economics blog on how to control government spending. But the discussion never gets around to mentioning global warming. Are these guys nuts? Dealing with global warming is going to involve spending huge amounts of money. The only comparable example we have (so far as I know) is WWII and the creation of an economy with one goal. If we don't deal with global warming, the damage it does will cost gazillions. So what is the point of talking about balancing the budget, when we are looking at losing coastal cities to flooding and the Midwest to drought? Snarl.

It's obvious what we need to do: get serious about reducing use to fossil fuels and -- at the same time -- begin to deal with the consequences of CO2 already in the atmosphere. We are going to have to invest in wind power, solar power, geothermal power, massive energy conservation, the building of dykes and flood gates, insulating every house in the country, painting roofs white, reorganizing agriculture to deal with pervasive drought... The list goes on and on and on.

The politicians and pundets are planning to reduce the federal budget, as if none of this is going to happen. As if Katrina and Irene and Sandy have not already happened. As if the Midwest is not already in a drought.