22.9.02

Okay... that's not too bad. Status of the move and the new plans...

Switching gears is not an instant process between two Breakout type novels. It took me about a day of misery to get back onto Magic in the Streets and do my homework. I did it. It took me about two days after class to manage to get back in synch with Chazho.

Ouch. It's a bit rough. I probably won't be doing much other new material for a while. But the heck. For all the slowness, for all that I wind up ripping up the underpinnings of my psyche to paint the prose in blood and less savory substances, like spinal fluid, it seems to be producing good prose. The first two scenes came out well in the nice little cat's book. The cat is nice and little, or was before the opening atrocity. Now he's just little and a combat veteran. Worse, the ghosts of the kittens killed in the first scene are all mewing at me for reincarnation in their own novels later on. I am haunted by kitten characters. It's a special litter. They all had personality. One of them even wounded the monster. I miss him already.

The good news, not only did I get another Chazho chapter done tonight - Ch 14 done - but after that and thanks to a crit from Eric West, I did a good rewrite on a pro nonfiction article and sent it out on an esubmission. Whoohooo! I got a look at what that magazine PAYS... darn tootin it's a good idea for me to do topical nonfiction. Should this little article sell, it's less than 3,000 words, it will get between $350 and $850. Ka-thunk. See my jaw dropping. See me drooling at New Orleans, where it's likely to be one or two months of good living. I can do this thing.

I put myself on a habit system: Submissions Monday. If I'm late, Monday can be any other day of the week. I will ship out between one and however many articles and short stories I can on Mondays and dedicate a day of the week to short work. Batches are more likely than single submissions, but this was a hard week.

I think it's going to be fun and I think it's going to work out.

Robert and Ari >^..^< (What's up there? What's that noise? I have to climb up there and chase it. That's a cat's duty!)