from russia with love

I woke up this morning to some fabulous news, which I unfortunately can't share with you yet (haha, suckers). It was fabulous enough to get me to make a phone call at 7:30am, but not so fabulous that I wasn't able to go back to sleep -- so I slept until ten, then got up and called my parents (who were in fine form, it seems). Then I putzed around, showered, made myself look somewhat presentable, and went to Morning Due to work (since I needed to eat and write and still didn't have any food in the house). At Morning Due, I had a lovely chat with the cashier, who was glad that I wasn't dead after my long sojourn in Iowa (isn't it odd to see the same people repeatedly at coffee shops, and then suddenly never see them again?). I also had a great breakfast for lunch, and did a bit of writing for Nick and Ellie.

But when it was time to move my car, I vacated the neighborhood and came home, with a stop at Safeway to stock up on groceries for my ongoing hermitage. Then I came home, cleaned out the fridge, put away the groceries, came upstairs, and proceeded to work from approximately 3:30pm until now. The first task was finally, finally finishing that excerpt booklet and uploading it to the printer, which seemed to go well -- we'll see when I get the proof. Then, I alternated between writing and procrastinating, with a break for supper; I bought some frozen gluten free bread, which was totally delicious even though the slices are approximately 3"x3" and a loaf costs like $5. But for bread that doesn't make my stomach hurt, it was worth it...so I toasted two slices and made myself a peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich with a glass of milk, which was like the dinner of champions after not having had a peanut butter sandwich in eight months or so. Yum.

I continued to write longhand because it's the only thing that works, even if I did check twitter on my phone occasionally -- and I got 2115 words, which I will totally take. This scene took a weird left turn and a highwayman got killed, which I totally did not see coming. I'm a little worried that this book is going to be way, way dark compared to the first two; Ellie and Nick both have a lot more personal demons than any of my other characters, and I stupidly already publicized it with a killer in their midst, so I can't really tone back the darkness of the external plot to leaven the darkness of their emotional arcs. But I'm going to try my damnedest not to dwell over the beginning and just keep going to see where I end up; I have six weeks to write this draft, and I can't write a draft in six weeks if I rewrite the first half four or five times.

After I hit my wordcount, I designed and ordered some swag for the conferences I have coming up (sticky notes! fun!), and also set up a new Goodreads ad to see if I can spike sales for SCOTSMEN. And now, I think I shall go to bed -- goodnight!