The writing process...

So you know that old joke about the anthropologist who is doing field research in a remote jungle, and one night, across the river, drums begin to play, many loud drums. And the anthropologist goes to the village headman, who tells him, "Do not worry about the drums. Worry when the drums stop."

For days and nights, the drums continue, but no matter how many times the anthropologist asks the headman for the meaning of this, the only answer he receives is: "Do not worry about the drums. Worry when the drums stop."

Finally, late one night, the drums. Stop.

Terrified, the anthropologist runs to the headman. "The drums have stopped! What happens now?!"

"Now comes the bass solo."

Now come the rewrites...

Friday Cat Blogging!

Spike is a 22 pound male, eleven years old, who loves loves loves little Sorscha (she's around 16 years old). The love is mutual. I frequently find the two of them cuddled together and they love to groom each other as well. It's awfully cute!

Mundane Things I Gotta Do...

For some reason, no matter how much time I theoretically have (and not working, there's a lot more of it), I still end up with a sort of tunnel vision when I get close to the finish line on a big project. Or in this case, a draft of a big project. I will emerge now and then from my weird writing coma and note that there are bags of paper (consisting of all the mail I've been shoveling into them that I've otherwise ignored, and the bags are a step up from the Random Piles of Paper that frequently occur before the Bags of Paper step), bills to pay, rugs to vacuum, laundry to do and to fold and to hang, dishes to wash...

In other words, I look up and realize I'm surrounded by chaos. And stuff I gotta do.

In this case, aside from cleaning up the aforementioned mess, I need to do my taxes. I have to put a Reader's Guide together for ROCK PAPER TIGER (a reader's guide? I am clueless!). And because I've met all kinds of wonderful writers lately, I really really really need to update my blogroll and links, particularly because the more organized among those folks have already got me on theirs.

At the moment, though, I'm sitting on my couch with two out of the three kittehs, it's RAINING (again!) with intermittent thunder for good measure, and what I think I'll do next is...continue to sit here a while...

New commenting system...

In what was one of the more clumsily handled transitions in recent interwebz history, Haloscan was phased out and replaced by something called Echo. We had the option of taking Echo or...nothing! that is, losing all our old comments (they could be "exported" for import into some future theoretical commenting system by a means that didn't yet exist). Anyway I didn't act on this so my account got ported to Echo. And it sort of works, but for some reason the comments aren't showing up on the main page today. You can't get to them by clicking "comment" either, but you will if you click on the title of the post in question.

I'm hoping they will magically fix this but I suppose I need to go complain to someone...

Enjoy the game, those of you who are watching! (I will be)

ETA: Comments are back -- it seems to have been a widespread problem.

And...GEAUX SAINTS!!!

ETA 2: Oopsie. Comments are gone again. Sigh.

Take THAT, homicidal WIP!

I typed "End" on the draft at about 3:30 AM Friday. Oh, wait, I actually didn't remember to type "End" till later in the day. But the draft is done, in spite of the sneaky little bastard of an MS trying its best to shorten my life through anxiety-provoking, non-cooperative behavior. Those of you who have had similar writing experiences know what I mean. The rest of you will just have to take my word for it -- the story was out to get me.

Now I need to name it.