if you insist on knowing my bliss, i'll tell you this

I had an incredibly great day. I slept in slightly, blow-dried my hair, and still made it to work in time to get my allergy shots before going to my first meeting of the day. I unfortunately had more meetings than anticipated in the afternoon and so couldn't have Doug and his European friends over for lunch, but I was able to meet up with Adit and Katrina for an earlier, quicker lunch at my favorite cafe. My sandwich wasn't quite as good as usual because they forgot the sprouts, but considering that the turkey, pepperjack cheese, tomatoes, and avocados were all free, I suppose I shouldn't complain. And they more than made up for it with their homemade ice cream -- the chocolate brownie ice cream today was absolutely stellar.

It was v. nice to see Adit and Katrina, and to take a total break from work in the middle of the day (and to show my work friends that I do actually have a life outside of work, which could easily be called into question given my years of workaholic history). I'm hopeful that we'll make this a biweekly tradition, but we'll see how that goes.

I spent the rest of the day in meetings, and then at the end of my meetings, set a goal that I would get through as much stuff as possible but stop at 6:30 regardless of what I had finished. I didn't end up stopping until 6:45, but I felt good about what I'd gotten done, and left with a light heart. I went promptly to Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park, where I had a truly excellent sandwich -- turkey, gouda, tomatoes, lettuce, caramelized onions, mayo, and garlic on foccacia. The sandwich was huge, so I brought half of it home, but it was v. satisfying even if it's absurdly overpriced.

While at Cafe Borrone, I wrote ~1000 words, which became the new first chapter for my book. Or rather, it's Amelia's new first chapter; I think I'll actually open the book with Malcolm's first chapter, but the feedback I'd gotten (and wholeheartedly agreed with) was that Amelia's first chapter wasn't interesting/excited enough. I'm much happier with the new version -- and I actually posted it on the romance blog! So you can check it out for yourself, if you're so inclined.

Now that the first chapter is in better shape, that's a huge weight off my chest. The rest is all fixing the line edits that I made on my paper copy a couple of weeks ago, adding in some bridging and details to make the story clearer and tighter, and perhaps adding a few scenes towards the end to show their progress towards love even more emotionally. But I'm very excited about where I am!

Tomorrow's another day in the office, but I'm hopeful that I'll get some productive writing in this weekend, despite my other fun social plans. Now, though, I should go to bed so that I can get to the weekend as soon as possible!