Friday, January 08, 2016

your heart is too strong anyway

My dire warnings about lack of connectivity tonight were somewhat founded, but I'm eking out just enough signal to post this (I hope). Today was a full-on immersion into the social whirl, but I actually got some work done (shocking, I know!). I also got the 9+ hours of sleep I was hoping for, which may keep me alive tomorrow when I get six or seven tonight...

But I woke up this morning, laid in bed and listened to the rain drumming on my skylights, and eventually got up to pour the tea that had made itself for me in my timed teapot. Then I curled up on the couch with a blanket and my laptop and spent a couple of hours rereading what I've got for Rafe and Octavia. I had basically put them totally away for the last six weeks or so, as I was feeling like the book had possibly died on me - it was feeling so wrong that I wasn't sure it would ever be right, and I was on the verge of abandoning it entirely, apologizing to my fans (and likely losing a bunch of them), and starting a new series. And I had done some work on the secret gargoyle project, although not enough to really make a ton of progress there...before taking off my time in Iowa entirely, which was probably what I needed.

But I decided to open up Rafe and Octavia and see how it felt with some time and distance. So I read most of it this morning, and got through the rest of it during my writing date this afternoon, and made some notes as I was reading. And the verdict: there are certainly parts that are boring and can be edited/cut, and there are parts where I'm probably struggling (possibly too much) to decide what to recap from Thorington's book and what to leave out, since this book overlaps with that one (which was probably a stupid way to set it up). But....there are also parts that are great, and feel like they're alive (albeit on life support, with a weak, thready pulse). So maybe it's more like one of the ancient trees in my front yard in Iowa, struck by lightning so many times that the core is cracked and it looks dead, but is somehow still putting out new growth thirty feet up in the air.

Anyway. I don't exactly know what the next step is, but I intend to find out. And that's vaguely exciting, but I'm trying not to get too excited because this is the first time I've been excited about it in months and I don't want to jinx it.

So...eventually I had to shower, and throw some stuff in a bag, and run out the door to drive to Hillsdale for lunch at Cheesecake Factory (which I haven't been to in years). This was weird because a) Cheesecake Factory and b) I was invited by Barbara, who I'm friends with, but the lunch was to celebrate the birthday of another writer whom I've never met before in my life. That woman arrived and sat across from me and was clearly trying to figure out if she knew me and why I was there, so that was vaguely humorous. But lunch was really fun, and I liked the birthday woman, and I knew four of the five other women, so it was all good.

Then, Barbara, Anne, Poppy and I went to Starbucks and wrote for a couple of hours (and gossiped a little). My 'writing' was finishing rereading, but that was what I needed to do. Then, I went to Belmont and met Shedletsky for a drink (mai tais!) at Rangoon Ruby. Our drink was at 5pm, which seemed highly civilized to me, and we talked about our vacations and recent developments in tech, which was super fun. At 6pm, Tina (aka Bride of Shedletsky) joined us, and we had a v. v. v. tasty dinner, and reminisced about our magical north bay experience from December.

But eventually I had to leave them to have another magical north bay experience - which means I drove two hours up to Calistoga to arrive here at 9:30pm and hang out with John and Jess. They've had a house up here for a week, and it's gorgeous (although I couldn't see the outside as it was dark, but I could hear a creek raging, and the trees are beautiful, and I saw Orion as soon as I got out of my car - that constellation always makes me happy somewhere deep inside). So I came up to hang out and spend the night with them, which means we spent the last three hours catching up (although Jess fell asleep for the last twenty minutes of it, which was probably the smart thing to do). Their hospitality remains unparalleled; John made us cocktails in his usual fashion (invent something with whatever is around), which resulted in us each having two mugs of 'honey bacardi' (hot water, honey, bacardi gold rum). Surprisingly, this was one of his better efforts, hence the ability to have two of them.

But now, my liver is whispering that perhaps living in Iowa would be healthier for it, and my heart is whispering that perhaps California is worth sticking around in even though my soul longs for a bit of wild nomadic wandering...and my body is saying that they're all being stupid and it's time for bed rather than ruminations about the future. So I'm going to sleep so I can enjoy the north bay before heading back to the city tomorrow - goodnight!

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