Bekah got out of class early, so I'm phasing out of writing mode. Oh well, I got one scene done and started on the next. I'll leave the wordcount for the day where it is, and roll the remaining words into tomorrow's count.

For now, I'm off to whip together some dinner.

Finished scene 62 -- 1112 words, and a smattering of good news for the protags (about time, poor schmucks). New MS total is 82070/89000, which is good news for me. :)

Let's see what time it is ... only 8:00. Good, maybe I can crank out another scene before ten, after all. Off to the races ...

Rebekah left for class a while ago, and I've switched into writing mode. I may or may not be able to achieve my previous two scene goal today because of the decreased timespan. I'll at least crank one out, though. :)

Back from the errands. Rebekah is doing a little code work and so am I (Envision stuff). I'll get started on the writing after she heads off to the university.

Rebekah's midday class was canceled, so she doesn't have to head to class until around six. She and I are going out to do some grocery shopping and other jazz until then.

I just finished watching a good flick called Panic, with William H. Macy, John Ritter, Donald Sutherland, and others. Cool story and great acting. There are so many sleepers like that, and it's always nice when I find one.

I haven't done any more work on scene 62. I think I'll do it tomorrow (later today, I guess). Thursday's are my long afternoon/evening, because Rebekah has late classes. A quiet house during the right hours is a good thing. I want to get through at least the next two scenes, and they are both Kat and John scenes, so they should flow pretty easily.

Bekah's home, and we're going to do some more bug-slaying and code reorganization this evening. I'll pick-up the writing in the eldritch hours.

Finished scene 61. It's 1249 words long, for a new MS total so far today of 80958/88000. I'm starting the next one now.

Well, we finished up at about 2:30 last night. Great stuff -- it's really fun to work with Rebekah on a decent project. I might actually be able to get back into my former insanely-happy-coding-mode if she was working with me full-time. I guess we'll have an opportunity to test that statement at the end of next semester (she's graduating in May).

Today, I'm getting some words down. I have to do some research now on life-support equipment for the next scene.

Rebekah and I have been working on her program for many hours. We've written a lot of cool stuff tonight, but it's still not quite done. Good thing it's not due for a couple more weeks. :)

Wrote scene 60. It came in at 1202 words, and I also did a few other edits on the last few scenes. Overall net gain so far today of 1480 words. The new MS total is 79709/86000. I'm going to list MS totals that way from now on (actual/calculated).

Anyway, upward and onward. I'm starting on scene 61 now.

Rebekah and I had some errands to run this morning/afternoon. Just got back a short while ago, and she just left for classes. I need to crank out a scene or two before seven tonight. After then, Bekah and I will be working on her library app. She wants some guidance putting the finishing touches on the program.

Had a fantastic plotting session with Steve (as usual). Replotted the remainder of the book at the macro level, and micro-plotted the next ten scenes. The pre-climax and climax scenes are very exciting (and some, quite tragic). I think it will be a very satisfying ending, and I'm looking forward to writing it! I may or may not crank out any scenes tonight ... we'll see how I feel after Rebekah crashes.

Based on my current writing stats, I only have around 16 more scenes to write. I definitely need to plan them out carefully, I think. Of course, I can always go over, but I don't want to come in under (unless it cannot be avoided). Also, I go by "hard" wordcounts -- my calculated value will actually be quite a bit higher than the value Word spits out. Schweet.

Steve is coming over tonight to help with some scene studies. I feel like I need to impose some new order and planning on the story, now that I am nearing the end. These last 20,000 or so words will be action-packed, and I want to make sure all of the bases are covered in a believable way that maximizes the thematic elements.

Ended up spending the afternoon and evening yesterday with Mike & Lanora. Rebekah joined us for dinner, and then she and I came home around eight o'clock. I spent the late night hours doing some revisions on the novel, mostly just proofing. I'll roll the slightly modified new wordcount into the new words for today.

I'm going over to Mike & Lanora's for a little bit. Uncle Mike wants to plant some palm trees today (which may or may not happen), and Lanora needs help with something on her PC. Rebekah is working on her library app this afternoon (I can't believe it), and other than getting my words out later on, my day is wide open. I should probably finish the mowing today, but it's too hot right now.

Blah, blah, blah ... what does it all mean? Who knows! Be back in a bit. ;)

Wrote scene 59. It came in at 1094 words. I also did some edits from my hard copy proofing. The current MS total is at 78229, for a net gain so far today of 1103. I'm pretty close to 10K for the week, but I think I'm going to pack it in for the night.

Oh, in other news, I think I must have brushed up against a Brazilian pepper tree today when I was mowing. I have these angry red streaks up and down the inside of my left arm. Looks like I have lots of itching to look forward to over the next week or so. JOY!

The adjustment for daylight savings time means I get an extra hour to write tonight. That's good, because I did not get any words done yet.

I ended up doing some mowing after all. I finished the strip out by the road and the areas around the house. These were the spots that were most irritating to me, so I'm glad I knocked them out. Lots of fire ants in the yard, but it's dark out now, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to start Amdro-ing their asses. Those things are evil, and I can't rake the yard until most of them are dead.

Bekah is still working on her library app (has been all day). I'll probably wait until the eldritch hours to start writing. I've allowed my body to adjust to its preferred schedule again (later the better), so around eleven is probably the best time to get started.

I woke up at midday again today, and had to take care of some annoying Envision stuff. I can't go into it here, but I do have this one obfuscated statement to make about it: "Information wants to be free." And that's all I have to say about that.

Anyway, I helped out Rebekah for a few hours this afternoon on her library application. It's coming together nicely. She has all of the core functionality done, and is now hammering away at the reports.

I probably won't get to writing until later on. I really should mow the lawn today, but I may put it off until tomorrow.

Noticed some bizaare Blogger behavior while trying to look at previous posts. First off, I ended up at someone else's blog entirely. I regenerated my archive files, at which time they all seemed to start working again, but one week now displays pop-up ads.

Oh well, you really can't beat free stuff. :)

In other news, Bekah is still not home from class. I should have kept writing for another hour. Then again, no one ever accused me of being too sensible.

Oh, while I'm babbling, I should note that we actually received some rain this week, so the grass went ape-shit again.

Note to self: Mow the damn yard this weekend!

On a mostly unrelated note, I thought I'd paste in a pic of our house. Why? Because I just found it on my HD. This is from last season (before Bekah painted the gray stripe yellow), and doesn't show most of the property, but you get the idea. :)



Maybe while I'm out mowing this weekend, I'll take some pics of the rest of the property and put them up here.

Well, rounded out the scene with a surprise reappearance by a previously introduced minor character, and some bad news for Roger and John. Ended up with a net gain so far of 1705 today. I plan to do another scene later on (during the eldritch hours), but we'll see how it goes.

Finished scene 57 -- a shorty. I'm well into scene 58, and the total for the day so far is around 1250. Oh, I also noticed last night that my chapter headers were mis-numbered. I'm currently on chapter 32 (not 31). God bless me. I should probably have Word auto-number those damn things, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I also made some other minor manuscript formatting changes after reading some submission guidelines a little more carefully. Chapters start on a new page of their own now, and scene break characters are now centered.

Anyway, I'm going to go get cleaned up and then come back and finish 58.

The Blogger site was down for maintenance until a short while ago. I stayed up quite late last night reading and such, and consequently woke up late today -- around eleven.

I had to take care of some domestic business earlier, but now I'm sitting down to get my words out. Rebekah should be home around five, and there's a rumor that she wants to go out to dinner tonight. I'd like to be finished with my words for the day before she gets home.

Hammered out another 500 words -- just the beginning of scene 57. Ended up with a new MS total of 75424, and a net gain of 2165 for the day. Not too shabby. Rebekah just headed-off to bed -- she has to get up early. I'm going to work some more on edits and the like, and then go to sleep myself.

Steve came over for a bit, and we watched some crap-TV. He left shortly before Rebekah got home. She's reading now, and I think I'll try to crank out some more words before calling it a day.

Finished scene 56, the first of part three. 1720 words so far today. I'm sending out the latest MS copy to the "Interface Readers" distribution group after I proof it -- it's been over a week, and some of the beta readers are getting restless. :)

Finished reading Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Great book, Heinlein rules. Got me thinking quite a lot about freedom and liberty in our society (and the lack of it sometimes). I'm not going to rant about it here, but some of it may find it's way into my own story ... we'll see.

Anyway, time to get back to work. Bekah left for class a little while ago, and she'll be out most of the evening. So, I have seven hours to go nuts and fully intend to do so. I'll check-in from fantasy land later on.

Spent some time this morning doing Envision work. I won't bore you with the details here.

On the writing front, I totally slacked-off yesterday (though not from a lack of trying to write). It just wasn't happening. Consequently, I'm going to go buck wild today and crank out as much as my addled brain allows. To that end, I'm getting started on scene 56 after Bekah leaves for school.

Watched a couple of movies tonight since the writing wasn't happening. Saw Scorpion King and Insomnia. Both were pretty good, better than most of the crap we've rented lately.

I'm debating whether to attempt the writing again tonight or to just call it a day. I've had several false starts today, and that's usually a sign that it just isn't going to happen. I can still make 10K - 12K words this week, but I'll have to kick ass over the next three days to do it. I'm hoping that once it starts flowing well again, I'll be able to get some momentum back.

Turned-in relatively early again last night, got up around 10 or so this morning. I'm feeling amotivational, which is a bad thing, because I need to get my words out today. Rebekah is at class, and I have no reason not to be writing right now, but it just isn't happening. It's not really writer's block, per se, I'm just not inspired. I'm going to stop trying to force it for a while and do something else ... reading might help, oh and I'll mix up a batch of iced tea -- caffeine can't hurt, after all.

Sometimes, I just have to wait around for lightning to strike, and make sure I'm in the right place physically and mentally when it happens. Hopefully, this is one of those days.

Chinese food was good, but I look a little like Buddha now with my stuffed belly.

Finished 55, and I think I'm going to wrap-up "part two" with it. It wasn't as dramatic a close to that part as I was expecting, but it does represent a significant turning-point in the saga of our protags, so it seems as good a place as any. I can always shift it to an earlier or later scene during revision, if necessary.

Anyway, that latest scene ended up being 1426 words. With that and the little bit I tacked-on the end of 54 earlier, the new MS total is 73216, for a net gain so far today of 1961. I might start "part three" later tonight, if I'm feeling frisky.

On a whim, I just ordered Chinese food from Ming Dynasty. Rebekah doesn't like Chinese food, so I rarely get to eat it. Since she's at class until 7:00 or so, I'll pig-out on my own.

I think I'll go watch some crappy news and see what's going on in this crazy world while I await food arrival. Back in a bit.

Finished scene 54. Strangely painful to have one of the quasi-main characters go by the wayside, but it had to happen. I gave Cleo her own chapter for that scene, may she rest in peace.

Had a lovely evening with Rebekah. The kitchen is now clean and we had a nice dinner. Turned-in pretty early, so no more writing completed last night. Today, I'd like to wrap-up scene 54 and get into the next one, which might be the last in "part two".

Still stalled on the scene ... I think I'll go for the most blunt, horrific ending possible, since that's the message that needs to be conveyed. Here are the latest counts:

Words today: 1532.
Total words exact: 71255
Total words calculated: 77000

Not too shabby. I need to pop out and clean up the kitchen before Rebekah gets home. We've both let it degrade into a disaster area, and I need to do something about it before it makes us physically ill. :)

Phew. Just got most of the way through scene 54. It's a powerful one, and will probably be Cleo's last. I haven't decided how to end it yet, or rather, I have decided how to end Cleo, I'm just not sure if this is the scene to do it in. 1300 words so far in the scene, and I'm taking a break to mull over how best to end it.

The muse is back in town, baby!

Another hour gone by. I started on the WIP, but then got side-tracked and wrote up a new biography at FMC using the same template I have here. Pretty nifty, if I do say so myself. Feel free to check it out using the link under my image over there on the right.

Note to self: stop procrastinating!

Paid the bills. You'd think a computer nerd like me would pay everything online, right? Nope. Not sure why Rebekah and I haven't made the transition -- we spend about 80% of our waking life on the freakin computer, so it isn't from lack of access, I assure you. Steve has been doing online bill pay for quite a long time without problems, so it isn't really from paranoia, either. Maybe that's why I haven't done it -- so Steve can comment on it once in a while. It's nice to have Steve berate me occasionally for being illogically stubborn about something. He also chides me for not having picture-in-picture set up on our monster entertainment system. That's not going to happen any time soon, either. :)

Okay, almost noon and I still haven't started writing. I think I flipped myself into editor mode with the MS proof-reading, and it's taking a while to find the muse again. JOY! Oh well, the only way to get back into the groove is to quit whining and just do it, so I'm opening up the document now and starting. Be back from fantasy land in a bit.

I did some more helping of Rebekah with her library app and proof-reading of the MS yesterday, but was otherwise unproductive. Oh, I also did some more reading in Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Very cool book, though the narrative style is somewhat unusual.

Anyway, I've got to get some writing done today. Rebekah is leaving for class shortly, I'm well rested both mentally and physically, and I'm anxious to get into the next phase of Interface. In other words, I have no excuses not to crank out some quality prose today. :)

I ended up being mostly fat and lazy yesterday. I did help Rebekah with her library application for a few hours, and she is making excellent progress on it. I also printed the first 300 pages of the Interface manuscript, and proof-read through the first 150 pages. It's interesting how different it feels to read it when it's down on paper.

As far as producing new words, I need to shoot for my 10K again this week.

Okay ... just got back from helping Mike for the last time this week. We did a big house, lanai, driveway, and sidewalk this morning. He's trying out a new guy on Monday, and hopefully he will work out for Mike. It's a pretty easy job, though it is manual labor in the hot sun. I'm defintely more of the white-collar, work in the A/C all day kind of person, but it's been interesting for a change, and it was great to help Mike out when he needed it most.

I have not done any writing this week, which is bumming me out a little. I need to get back into the swing of things ASAP. I also corresponded with both of my clients this week via e-mail, and between the two of them, there is months of work to be done. So, lots to do and I need to do it.

I'll probably take a nap this afternoon. This getting up before the crack of dawn business has been tough to adjust to. I'd much rather be going to sleep at dawn than getting up, and I suspect no amount of wishful thinking will change that.

Ugh. So far, the writing is not flowing at all tonight. I wonder if it has anything to do with my "writing time" habits? I typically turn out prose much later in the day -- historically, I have been the most active during the 10PM - 2AM hours, with some success in the earlier evening hours here and there. On the other hand, it could just be because I am physically sore and tired after nearly a week of helping Mike with the pressure cleaning.

Oh well, this weekend and all next week, I plan to make up lost ground as much as possible. Sadly, my creative abilities are not the kind of thing I can just "switch on" at will -- I have to be in the right place at the right time (the witching hour) and wait for lightning to strike. At least, that's always how it has been in the past.

Ah, another long day at the "help-your-family-out" grind with Uncle Mike. One more day, and then it's back to being me. On the plus side, working out in the hot sun every day this week is giving me a nice farmer's tan, and you can't beat that. ;)

I just got home a few minutes ago, and after sending out some e-mails, I'm ready to crank out a scene or three on the novel. My word count this week is, well, non-existent at the moment, so I need to chip away at my original goal a bit today. JOY!

Blogger was down (DNS problems) last night, so no journal entry for yesterday. I worked with Uncle Mike yesterday and today, and let's see here ... the highlights from yesterday were a wasp sting and three fire ant bites ... today, no injuries to report. Both days, we did seven houses and it's been going fine. It's a lot of fun working with Mike, though I am definetely not cut out for manual labor.

Anyway, haven't done any writing yet this week (JOY!), but I hope to do some tomorrow night. Mike and I are supposed to have a light day Thursday, and Rebekah has class until 10PM, so I should have a few hours of prime writing time. I'm going to suggest that Steve come over tonight, so that I can be undistracted, etc. tomorrow. I'd like to get 2000-4000 words tomorrow, if at all humanly possible.

Just finished dinner with Rebekah. Had an interesting first day with Mike. Hot, sweaty, manual labor featuring pruned feet and sunburned skin. All in all, a great day! Seriously, it's nice to help him out, and it's good for me to do something away from the computer once in a while. I will be wearing waterproofed shoes and sunscreen tomorrow, though.

Rebekah and I are working on her SA presentation (due tomorrow), and her Software Engineering presentation (due Thursday). I'm happy to say she's fairly confident about the one tomorrow. Unfortunately, she still has severe reservations about the one on Thursday, so we're going to attempt to raise her confidence about it tonight.

On the writing front, I did not do squat last night, but I'll try to drag my tired brain out of it's cell to do some work tonight. To be honest, I already don't really see it happening tonight, so who am I trying to kid? (I'm tuckered). Damn! I need to balance the new hours and dynamics over the next couple of days and get moving forward again with the novel. Loss of momentum is death. Oh, on the positive side, I did send out the latest MS copy to the beta readers, so I guess I'm not a complete slacker.

Got the pictures of the Jeep, and also took some of an old Mercedes that Uncle Mike calls "the Bentley". Anyway, I put them up on the old car trader site and we'll see what happens.

I also spoke with him about helping him with his pressure cleaning business. The fellow who used to help him died last year, and he's having a real problem keeping up with all of his clients. I helped him with it for a few weeks some years ago, and I agreed to do so again (at least on a trial basis).

The main problem with helping him out is keeping up with the novel (and the skewed sleep cycle). I'm sure I can deal with it, though. Of course, if the coding projects heat up again, that will have priority over helping Uncle Mike.

On the writing front, I'm going to try to get some words down tonight. However, I need to get to bed somewhat early so that I can start helping Mike in the morning (have to be there before 8:00). Yikes!

My uncle Mike called today telling me to "Sell that damn Jeep!" I've had my old CJ5 monster Jeep parked over at his place for months. Uh, out of sight, out of mind, I guess. I need to go get some digital photos of the thing today and get an ad placed on the oldcartrader.com web site.

In other news, Rebekah is practicing, practicing, practicing her SA presentation. It's sounding a lot better now, god bless her.

Doh! I almost forgot to confirm Bri's flight reservations. Actually, I did forget and had to rebook. Ended up with a better price on the same dates, though, so it worked out. I never did hear back from her mother and repeated attempts to call her were fruitless. JOY! Anyway, Brianna will be coming down on 12/27 through 1/3. Yeehaw!

Finished scene 53, another action-fest, this time from Capra's POV. Phew. I ended up at 69674 words, for a net gain today of 3455. That's close enough to 70K for tonight. Oh, and my calculated word count is now over 75K. If I can pull off another day like this tomorrow night, I'll be back ahead of the game. I like it!

Finished scene 52, an emotionally powerful scene from John's POV. I also started 53, but am taking a short food/beverage break. The current new word count for the day is already up to 2264. Schweet.

Rebekah just headed off to bed. Her SA presentation is coming along nicely, though she still needs a bit more practice.

I'm just now getting started with today's writing. I'd like to hit a decent count of 2000-3500 words tonight. If I hit that upper limit, I'll be sitting at around 70K words for the MS, which will be acceptable for my weekly jump. We'll see how it goes, though.

We ended up getting an HP LaserJet 1000. It was $100 cheaper, has 10PPM and 600x600 DPI, which is more than adequate for our home-business printing needs. I'm psyched!

Oh, and dinner at Cappricio's was fabulous, too.

I think our old HP InkJet priner has finally died. May it rest in peace. Rebekah and I need a laser printer anyway, so I think we're going to go out and pick up an HP LaserJet 1200 that I've had my eye on for a while. While we're out, we might as well satiate Rebekah's craving for lasagna.

Finished reading Rose Madder this morning. I really liked it, but it took me a while to get through it. King was able to pull off a great story with only a few characters, and not really that much of a plot. Just goes to show you, once you're as established and experienced as King, you can make practically any idea into a bestseller.

Next I'm reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. Haven't read any of his stuff for a number of years.

Anyway, I'm helping Rebekah with homework this afternoon. She's stressing-out over a couple of presentations she's working on for System's Analysis and Software Engineering. I keep telling her: one thing at a time, prioritize and conquer. Good advice, but often hard to take.

On the writing front, I've discovered that for editorial submissions, the primary method used (by publishers/typesetters) for word count calculations is number of whole lines * 10 (if you have the right formatting, which I now do). That puts my estimated wordcount at 72000. That also means that when I hit my actual target word count of 100K, I'll have significantly more than that from the publisher's perspective. Cool!

Finished scene 51. I'm still not happy with it, but I can fix it up in revision. The scene ended up being quite long, so it gets a chapter all to itself. Anyway, the current MS total is 66219, for a net gain so far today of 1532. I'm taking a break and doing some more editing before jumping into the next one.

Spent some time today trying to find a flight for Brianna to come down after x-mas. I think we've settled on the 27th-3rd now, but I have to wait to hear back from her mother to verify that the times I have put on hold will work. *sigh*

On the writing front, I'm pushing slowly but surely toward the "end of the middle". I wanted to believe I was already there, but until the story is ensconced firmly in the framework of the end, it's still the middle. ;) Seriously, I'm at around 65K words, so the end of "part two" is looming close. I finally have Rudi with the other protags, and people are starting to get murdered left and right. Our poor confused scientists (and the reader) will soon know exactly what's been going on. Then the rest of the story is dedicated to "the battle" between our protags and that evil prick, Varner.

Got well into scene 51, and also did some edits of earlier stuff. New MS total is 64687, for a net gain today of 1756 words. I had more in 51, but scrapped it back due to some problems with Rudi Corso's spiel. I want him to come across as convincing as possible, and also set up a few things Steve and I discussed earlier. Oh well, I'll tackle it later.

For now, it's getting late, so I'm heading off to strudel-land (otherwise known as bed).

Finished scene 50, and made Rebekah a midnight (well, 2AM) snack. She's been staying up later, too, which isn't the greatest thing when you have to get up early and go to class. That's my nocturnal influence, I'm afraid. Still, she is getting a lot done on her various projects, so the lack of sleep isn't all bad, I guess.

Anyway, on to the next scene.

Steve took off a short while ago. We watched some crappy movies, and also had a brief discussion about upcoming scenes for the novel. I need to get at least a couple scenes written tonight, if not more.

I turned in early last night, and got up around 1:00 today (also early for me, at least lately).

On the writing front, I did some re-reading and editing today. The recent stuff is stronger than I thought it was. Good -- less time will need to be spent during the one-pass final revision. I still feel like it's probably weak on description, but it's hard to gauge (I see everything perfectly in my head, after all). Anyway, I need to get some new words hammered out tonight, at least 2500, and hopefully quite a bit more than that.

For now, Steve is coming over for Thursday night antics. We'll probably do some plot brainstorming, but there was also talk of trying to find some B5 tapes/DVDs at Blockbuster. I really would like to see that series, but I want to see it on high quality media and commercial free.

Okay, it's officially not working today. Drat! I'll have to make up some ground over the next three days. JOY! Oh well, tomorrow is a long, lonely day (Rebekah is gone from afternoon until 10PM), so I should not have any excuse not to work in the evening. Thursdays are typically productive days for me, so here's hoping the trend continues. ;)

Had an amotivational day. Trying to get some writing done in the eldritch hours ... so far, unsuccessfully. I'll let you know if things change later on.

Just finished scene 49. Rudi is finally with the other protags. Hooray! New MS total is 62931, for a net gain of 2334 so far. I haven't decided whether I should jump into the next one. I guess it's still pretty early (well, sort of), so maybe I'll take a crack at it.

Finished scene 48. Poor John is having a rough day, to say the least. Ended up at 61780 for the MS count, for a net gain of 1183 so far today. I'm still going, though, and I hope to double or even triple that.

Oh, I also sent out the latest MS to the 'Interface Readers' list. Enjoy, beta readers!

Finished up the GWUI changes, and now I'm moving on to other things. I'm going to get some words down before Bekah gets home.

I need to go buck-wild tonight on the writing to make up for last night. I'd like to knock two scenes out and shoot for something like 3000 words tonight, but we'll see how it goes.

Rebekah and I also need to work on her SA presentation, which still needs a fair amount of work. Hopefully we'll get it done tonight, so that she'll have plenty of time to practice it. No notecards allowed on this one, and it's a twenty minute speech. I hate it when they don't let you use notecards, those mothers. :)

Finally made it through scene 47. Sheesh! This one was from Varner's POV. It came in at a measily 869 words, but it feels about like the right length.

Argh. The writing is not going well tonight (at least, not yet). I got about 500 words into a scene, and then realized it wouldn't work because of chronology conflicts in the other story lines. Rather than trying to salvage it (when it wasn't that great anyway), I decided to scrap it. Back to square one...

Rebekah went to bed early tonight. Her late nights and lack of sleep finally caught up with her. I hope she gets some good rest tonight.

I'm getting ready to start working on the evening's writing.

I was up until 9:00 this morning, so I woke up around 4:30 when Rebekah returned home from class. We're working on her presentation stuff this evening, and then I'll do my writing again later tonight.

Finished scene 45 (a shorty) and scene 46. Ended up with a new MS count of 59669, for a net gain of 2196 tonight. Not too shabby. I want to hit 72000 by next weekend, which works out to something like 2055 words per day this week. Sounds doable. The story is kicking pretty good again now, too, which should help quite a lot. The middle was *hard*, but hopefully it will flow more easily from here on out.

Finished scene 44. Heading over into John's POV for the next one.

Bekah just went to bed. We worked some more on her presentation after my last post, and I still haven't started the writing yet today. I'm getting into it now.

Rebekah and I worked on her Systems Analysis project presentation for quite a few hours, and then watched our Sunday night shows. Sunday is the only night that we actually watch TV with any regularity these days. HBO has a pretty good lineup, and we especially like Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is probably the funniest show since Seinfeld. It's also nice not to have to deal with the evil commercials.

Anyway, I need to finish scene 44 and get into 45 tonight. I'd like to get over 60K words, but we'll see how it goes.

Had a good time fishing last night. We were up until 4AM or so, and I crashed at Steve's rather than coming home and waking up Bekah.

Today, Rebekah and I ate lunch at Perkin's followed by shopping at Cost-a-lot (that's CostCo, for those not conversant in Rebekah-speak). Just got home a few minutes ago.

We'll be working on homework-related activities throughout the rest of the afternoon/evening. I'll get back to the writing later tonight. I may wait until Rebekah goes to bed, in fact. All in all, not a terribly productive weekend so far, though I have high hopes for tonight.

Good rest, followed by an afternoon spent with Rebekah. She's working on her VID prototype, and I was helping her with some GUI design and database stuff.

Anyway, Steve should be here around six. I'm going fishing with him and his brother Chris. I've been a bit too hermetic lately, so a little time out in the big bad world will do me some good. Besides, I want to talk with Chris about military stuff for the book (he used to be an Army Ranger).

I'll probably be out until quite late, and I don't know if I'll do any writing afterwards or not. If I'm not too tired, I'll try to get my Saturday words after fishing. Otherwise, I'll just make it up tomorrow.

Got pretty far through scene 44, though it's still not done. The MS total is at 57473, which is over what I was shooting for earlier. Ended up with 2728 for the day. Not too shabby. :) Only 2527 left to do for the week, and the next scene should be easier to do (another John/Kat scene).

I'm chatting over at the FMC site now. I participated in the 'Word Wars' tonight, which helped push my word count up. It sure does help sometimes to be [sort of] surrounded by other writers, cheering you on.

Okay, scene 43 is finished. It ended up at 1248 words. Cleo strikes again -- the tragic dupe. The next one might be another Capra scene, or it might be time to head back into John or Kat's head. I have not decided yet. Either way, I plan to finish it before dawn.

Steve just took off. We watched a movie, Tequila Sunrise, that was less action and more romance than I remembered. Hey, that's what fourteen years will do to a memory. JOY! Anyway, I need to get another 1500 words or so today, so that's what I'm up to next.

Okay, that's a long time between blog entries ... I'm having withdrawal symptoms. ;) Rebekah and I are cleaning our computers. She had a virus, and while we're pretty sure it was not particularly damaging, it did make quite a mess. My cleaning is more precautionary in nature (because we're on a home LAN), but a good idea nonetheless.

Anyway, on the writing front, I did not do anything last night. So, it was officially an unofficial day off. I did get started on scene 43 today and got about 820 words or so into that. I'll be finishing it up later tonight and starting on the next one. I'm still not too far off of my weekly goal, so if I have a good run later, all should be well from a goal-reaching perspective.

For now, Steve is coming over to watch bad movies with Rebekah and me. I'll finish today's writing in the eldritch hours that I seem to enjoy so much. :)

Ack! I still haven't done any writing -- just haven't been in the mood today. It may actually end up becoming an unintended day off. I'm going to be up for a few more hours, so we'll see how it goes.

Got up earlier today (noonish), but I haven't been able to get any work done yet. Rebekah is working on a presentation for her Systems Analysis class, and I'm helping her with that. She has class tonight, so I'll do some writing then (and probably some more after midnight). That's all good.

My internet connection went down last night/this morning for about 12 hours. I felt like a fish out of water, LOL.

I ended up with a new MS total of 54745 last night, for a net word count gain of 2601 for the day. Not too shabby. That means I need to hit 1750 on average over the next three days to meet my end of week goal. No problem!

Got another 1300 words, and scene 42 turned out a differently than I expected, more emotional and more of a twist for the story. It marks a leap in speculation on the part of the MCs, but also a realization of the greater public stakes in the story. I'm still trying to figure out how to wrap up the scene, so a few more words are on the way later on. I'm going to let it sit for a while, then come back to it and wrap it up.

Rebekah is tutoring some poor java student over the phone. It's nice that people realize that she can help them and aren't afraid to call, but it's also a little annoying when they call at ten in the evening. Oh well, that's what you get for being smart. ;)

I'm getting ready to switch back into writing mode soon. I think I'll have another MC scene, possible with John and co. finally arriving back near (or in) the SFM. I think I'll have the tone be argumentative and dangerous, with a discussion of how/why to meet Rudi, and Kat's feelings of futility regarding their earlier premise about Varner and the HALO. As far as word count goes, I'd like to get at least another thousand words tonight. I'm sure I'll be up another six to eight hours, so that will hardly be a problem.

Rebekah came home around 6:00, and we had dinner and have been hanging out. She's working on some homework (loudly) in my office, so no writing for a while. :) I'm also chatting over at FMC.

Got another good scene and an unexpected twist. Scene 41 came in at 1246 words, for a new MS count of 53390. I think I'll do another scene today, since I cranked the first one out fairly early and I'm still feeling frisky. ;) I'm also sending out the latest MS e-mail to the "Interface Readers" group today.

After I send that e-mail, I'm going to grab some grub.

I stayed up pretty late last night (this morning), mostly just chatting over at FMC, but also doing edits on the MS. In other words, I haven't been up all that long. God bless my screwy sleep cycle.

In other news, Rebekah thinks she did okay on her mid-term yesterday (which is her way of saying she got the highest score in the class without actually saying it.)

On the writing front today, I'm mulling over how best to handle scene 41, and trying to plan a few more ahead. I need to have another brainstorming session -- I'm trying to have one with myself. I'll let you know how it goes. ;)

Whew. Scene 40 turned out to be a great one. I guess I just wasn't ready to write it until I actually wrote it. LOL. 1480 words, and our protags are on the move again. Between this scene and the quick-edits I did earlier, the new MS total is 52144 (for a net gain of 1580). Schweet. :)

Dinner was fabulous -- my specialty, pasta. ;) Rebekah is watching Changing Rooms, and I'm trying to get some writing done.

For scene 40, I think I'm going to jump back to Kat's POV, after a few days have elapsed. The gist should be that they haven't found anything definitive, though they are still trying new experiments. I think I'll have Random and/or Roger be successful in their crack at EEC, but perhaps they get burned in the process, thus requiring the techies to flee the scene. They have to part ways with Jen, and then after an argument, decide to return to a location back in the SFM.

Rebekah is home, so I'm gonna make some dinner. I haven't written anything yet ... I think I'll just wing it later on instead of trying to plan too much. Maybe Bekah can help me brainstorm a bit first.

Okay, I've switched into writing-mode for the day. I did some re-reading/quick-edits, and the MS to date is looking good. Now, I'm having a hard time deciding what should come next. I'll write out the current situations here in the hope that something will start to flow for me. I think the problem is that there are so many possibilities right now that I'm having a tough time deciding what to do next. I've gone off the charts with respect to the outline/scene studies, and that doesn't help much, either.

Okay, so here's a [lengthy] overview of where we're at in the story. Feel free to skip the numbered items if you're short on time (or don't want to know).

*** overview begins ***

1. Kat and John are at the genomics complex in GRM (Greater Raleigh Megalopolis) in NC. Roger, Random, and Jen are there as well. The latter three are trying to crack into EEC security to determine if Jules Varner was responsible for Roger's memory loss during the suspicious HALO-link encounter of the previous week. Kat has decided that she and John should begin testing the HALO units and software that they have with them to determine if Varner is cabable of screwing with anyone's memory during HALO i-time.

2. Rudi Corso has left the psychiatric hospital, and is "staying with a friend" until he gets back on his feet. He apparently has a theory about Varner's HALO abilities, but we haven't specifically heard what it is yet.

3. Detective Stephen Capra just met with Rudi's psychiatrist, Dr. Meg Sheth, and learned that Rudi left the hospital. He desires to speak to Rudi regarding his ideas about the HALO and Varner. Meg has told Stephen that she's worried about Rudi's ideas -- that she finds them potentially credible instead of strictly delusional. This undoubtedly has piqued Capra's interest further. Another factor with Capra is that he "suggested" his partner, Maria Lisle, take a voluntary leave of absence from the force, and that she has complied. We don't know her current situation or whereabouts (but she's not a POV character).

4. Jules Varner has just decided that he should take a more active role in finding John, Kat, and Roger. He doesn't know that they're together, or specifically that Roger has skipped town, though he has suspicions. He wants all three of them eliminated, as they are potentially dangerous to his plans.

His HALO projects are moving ahead full steam. He has the two military projects (Meta-death simulation being used by the Army and new GOLEM project with the Air Force). He has much of the massive Empire Entertainment corporation working on HALO-related projects. They are using the new HALO-link technology for interoffice communication, as well as working on the new games/environments. EEC plans a major distribution of fully-immersive HALO units to the general public on "May day" (May 1st), during the launch of their massively online multiplayer "Myth War" gaming campaign. They are giving away five million units to kick-off that distribution. Currently, only the military, test markets, corporate partners (such as OEMs', etc.) are using the device.

Varner is also controlling Cleo Frericks now on a constant re-programming cycle -- she is living on the grounds of his estate, and is basically his personal slave (though she doesn't realize it, of course). Varner thinks to himself that he is "doing all of her thinking for her now". She is deteriorating mentally and physically, and is having recurring nightmares about the murder of Helen Varner.

In the last Varner scene (the one I just wrote), he manipulates Gerard Watson (now his subordinate in all but title) into a psychotic hatred of Roger Wu. He does this partially just for the sick thrill of it, but also to brainstorm how he's going to handle the renegade scientists, and to determine how he may be able to use Watson to help him.

*** overview ends ***

Phew, that's a lot of shit going on! I want this part of the book (Part Two) to be largely about everyone finding out what the hell Varner has been up to, and to set up the all-out battle that will comprise Part Three. John, Kat, and the other protags are already suspicious that Varner is somehow using the HALO to manipulate people's memories, but they're not sure of this and don't know how he's doing it. They (and the reader) have no idea of his full potential to wreak mayhem with the device.

Of course, Kat developed the HALO technology, and John and Roger were responsible for much of the initial software associated with it, so it seems likely that they should be able to figure it out. For reasons I won't go into here, they will *not* be able to figure it out until they hook-up with Rudi Corso. Of course, they also have to stay out of sight, because the authorities believe that John murdered Helen Varner, and that Kat is his accomplice.

So, where to go from here? I still don't know! I'll mull it over for a bit and come back to it, I guess. JOY!

I fell asleep in my office while reading last night/this morning. I guess it was a little rude to do so, too. I was chatting at the FMC site and my computer went to sleep, undoubtedly resulting in my chat session 'timing out'. Sorry, folks. :)

Anyway, great sleep with whacky dreams. I had one this morning involving an alien invasion. The aliens attacked us by somehow modifying our Moon's orbital velocity, which resulted in all kinds of calamity on Earth. Then they just came in and mopped up the remnants. Kind of a cool idea, actually -- I might use that some year down the road for a story.