The rain's been moving in on us since yesterday. This might be two years in a row that we've gotten a cold front that actually passes over us in late July, early August, rather than just stalling out on top of us when it hits the Gulf air. That's a novelty, let me tell you.

I'm not sure but I'd rather have the rain. That's the benefit, when they stall out like that, depending on the boundary layer, we get daily thunderstorms out of it, and every drop a blessing. We're getting that effect now, but if the weather crews are correct, we're getting the short version of the story as the front passes to the south. It's a signal that the high pressure zone helping turn California's fire season into a mass of trouble has moved off west, and given the jet stream more room to maneuver, earlier in the year, than it's been used to for a few months.

Ok, the day gig stuff has officially moved into its next phase; basically, I've taken a new position, one with a different set of responsibilities than my previous one, including the extra travel. Different offices, a tear-down and rebuild of benefits and all that other things.

Essentially a new job, though it's more complicated than that.

None of this matters much for the fiction I work on here. Not in the long run. It's just the ups and downs of the immediate. Schedule's fluctuating as I get through the transition, but by next week the rhythms of daily life will have reasserted themselves.

I figure by the end of the month, I'll have forgotten the transition completely. At least, that's what I look at now and feel the most likely thing to be.

Of course, that's also the point where marching band season kicks into full gear, and I'm off to help my daughter's band get through it...

Sunday, carnitas simmering away on the stove, wondering if I was going to get any fiction in today, and then the part of my brain kicks in, the one that says "you've got a few minutes with nothing to do, there aren't many better ways to spend your time than a couple hundred new words..."

and there, look at my thousand, but now I've got dinner to finish up. Good weekend all round, to all of you reading this.

It's a Friday, ain't it? And I've finished my time with my story for today, I've some free time ahead of me before the return to the daily gig grind, all in all a good day.

Not grind, though it'll have its moments. I'm going through some changes in the day gig; the big change is big enough to turn what had been a grind into a new challenge. I'll be traveling more for that, but it's really only a dozen or so times a year, roughly, so even that isn't much of a travel schedule. I'm looking forward to the challenge of the new position.

Not least because those travel periods, combined with the way I'll working, will still give me my story writing time. The way I figure it, if Dean Smith and Kris Rusch can run a retail store and publishing company (i.e., they've got day gigs) and still put out good copy every day, then I can handle my day gig, as well.

And keep working on my words per day. I've got my goal there, for increasing the number by the end of the year. The new schedule should make it accessible, once I get through the transition period. Another benefit of the change, I'll still be in front of the computer every day, but the number of reports I'll need to write should drop.

So, words of nonfiction go down, words of fiction go up. That's the hope and the goal, doable if I do my part, and this is in addition to the personal time and increase in words. And the day hours are still for something I love doing.

I'm pretty excited about the way this opens up new vistas for me, in both sides of my life, here in the twilight world of storyland and the daytime world of the day gig.

That was yesterday's post, sent up today because I came home and fell into bed. Nothing major except timing, got off the plane after some relatively tame travel issues, an extra day in travel I didn't expect, had to run off and do some day gig stuff I didn't expect, and that took more time, and then I got home and visited with family and dogs and cats and... put my head down and went to sleep. And it was a good sleep, the kind of dog tired snore through the night sleep a weary mind and body need after time in strange surroundings.

The machinery stuttered, and here I am putting up today's and yesterday's in the same time.

Finished up another round of day gig stuff today, just finished on today's round of fiction writing, and here I am looking for what the rest of the day's events might hold. Quiet time, I think. I'm actually in the middle of a couple weeks vacation from the day gig stuff. In one sense, the travel and the past couple days intruded, but otherwise we've been able to rest and relax and recuperate.

And write. My fine time each day. This story, First Time (actually it's untitled, the file has a name but the story itself may yet await a realization to go along with it? Who knows, it's asking me for a different set of priorities; it's asking me to listen.) is humming along. I'm discovering a new thing aborning. I'm having a blast.

Thought I wasn't going to be writing on the plane trip home. The seat width turns me into a hunt and peck typist, and that's annoying enough that I thought I wouldn't be up to it. And of course there's the weather tossing us around now.

Nope, I got my words in, and this story is doing something. A very pleasant surprise. Now to close this down and finish the roller coaster ride.

Ok, writers, here's an excuse for writing: if you're stuck in a hotel room because your flight home got cancelled, then as a writer you're never short of stuff to do.

It was the same thing for me on the plane getting here last night. Most times, I'm asleep on the plane, but I figured I might as well start a new story. Experiment a little, since for day gig purposes I'm going to be a road dog more often than I've been accustomed to. If it works, I can at least count on a few other words a day that would have otherwise been lost to the disruption.

And now that I'm here in my room, rather than just killing time flipping channels, or not giving the current novel I'm in the middle of reading the chance it deserves because I'm too brain dead to read at the moment, hey let's drop into the story.

A thousand words later, I'm looking at the result going, you know what? That's a mighty fine way to spend an hour, writing. Fun, and it beats the alternatives six ways to Sunday.

Things I need to remember: yes, it really is fun, writing. It's relaxing, it's a quiet place to be while I watch and listen and think about the wild things unfolding in front of me. And there's nothing else like it in this old world.

So that's the sitch in this here writer's life.

And A Dagger's Width is done. Technically, it came out at novelette length, by the Hugo category definitions. A little over 9000 words at the moment. It turned out that there were things I needed to learn in the Open Wounds series.

A bit about how Megan found her own path through the world, after she and Tony D'ags had their first pass at working together. How the Brotherhood actually deals with renegades wizards; practically, as it turns out, at least at this particular time in history, not dogmatically.

More immediately, Megan discovered that there are monsters in this world. And that the self-created ones, the monsters that come crawling out of our own desires, consume us piecewise, tearing us apart to get to the outside world.

So apparently today's Friday is a Saturday for me. And I complain not even a little bit.

The short story here is that I've taken a week's official vacation, though I've been working on the day gig stuff; in either case, it's a vacation from home. I took a couple days off the calendar for strict day gig stuff, the others have been some time for my fiction writing of the day, some other stuff here and there, and then off for trips around town for vacation type stuff.

Today was load everyone up, including the dogs, and head off to the beach. Or at least this morning. Afternoon at the beach at this time of the year are no picnic, especially not with the dogs.

So we got everyone back here, cleaned up a little, and then crashed out for a nap. We've got some other running around to do this evening, DCI's in town for their annual visit, and we'll be heading over that way in a while.

And I'll not get any fiction words in there. That's ok, it's sort of baked into the schedule this week. And tomorrow I'll be back to it; today I'll take the break.

I forgot to mention this yesterday. One of the things I've taken from Dean Smith's writing is the idea of going back through each day's work, cycling, getting up to speed while making the little typo fixes. At the moment, it's basically a way to get the story inside my head each day, while cleaning the copy and making sure I didn't drop anything that I might want to use later.

The story I'm working on, I'd walked away after a couple days' work, thinking "ah, now I see what the ending should be", and then yesterday cycling up, working up to that last thousand, maybe two thousand words at most...

I realized that that wasn't in the cards.

Not that it turned into a novel. Perhaps double the original length? I hesitate still to guess what the total is going to be; it's already twisted on me once, there's no need to call the muse's attention too closely. We'll let it ride then, and see where it goes.

The Tour de France is a good thing to have on in the background; sort of the same thing with the World Cup, or The (British) Open tomorrow. Baseball, hockey, basketball, sports generally have a soothing background noise that makes for a nice environment to write in (or whatever I'm working on). Music does it for me, as well, but I'm on a bit of a different schedule at the moment, so I'm camping on the living room couch while I get my daily computer work done.

And they've hit the Alps over the past couple days at the Tour. The ultimate struggle. I'm sure there's a metaphor there, for any writers in the need of it. No matter how much work you do on any given day, there's another climb waiting for you tomorrow. Even rest days, you need to get out and put your miles in...

Having the pleasant noise in the background reminds me of having the transistor radio on while working in the garage. You know, when grandpa or whoever was tinkering around in the garage, building, sharpening, cleaning up, with the game on in the background to keep them company. All this way we've come, and that's sort of what phones have turned into, haven't they?

My daughter walks around all the time with headphones on, and give her just a few seconds to herself and she'll be reading on the phone as well. And there's nothing it reminds me of so much as the white cord hanging down from one ear with the game on...

It's the dog days of summer here, and that's a true statement. We're creeping up on the 'unnert mark; whether we make it there or not today is probably irrelevant, given the forecast for the rest of the week. Everything to this point has been the warmup, time for the main event.

One of the odd parts of the way the sunlight passes over, I think. Once you know about the summer solstice, it's natural, to me at least, to wonder how it can keep getting hotter. The days have been getting shorter, after all. Or, at least, they're supposed to. Yes, I understand the hangover effect that drives it, but that's an intellectual understanding, I'm afraid.

When contemplating the high heat, high humidity, all hot weather ahead o'er the next few weeks, you'll forgive me if I occasionally hope for a little magic; well, ok, maybe a little rain would do.

But if there's anything more maddening than the heat, it's the maddness of asking for rain. Down here where, if the Gulf relents for a second, we go from zero to more than we can handle in about five minutes.

In other words, it's more time to just shut up and soldier on. And make sure the dogs have plenty of water and don't spend more time outside at this time of the day than they really need to.

We're back from the trip, and perhaps getting ready to head out for the day. Maybe a museum trip, if I remember correctly. I'm deliberately ignoring the calendar at the moment, and thoughts of "must do's". That'll come again in a week or two, for now I'm happy to continue my bit of summer off.

Still writing of course. That's not must do, no schedule hanging over me, that's just the quiet time where I catch up to myself line by line, and discover what I'm thinking about underneath the noise.

It's another trip weekend for us. This time off to my dad's place for a weekend visit and torturing my daughter (her grandmother and aunts are taking her out for pictures; for our daughter at least, there are perhaps a few other ways to spend time with her family that could be described as more horrific. But if so, I can't really think of them at the mo'.).

Got a few words into the next story done this morning, maybe a few more this afternoon all things depending, who knows. But either way, a little push forward and that's a good thing.

And next week, a few publishing tasks; I've a paperback version of The Boyar's Curse to finish, and a couple stories more queued up and waiting to enter the cycle. Plus the ones I need to submit to various markets. Busy times ahead for me, and good ones. I had my own echo of DWS's comments about violating Rule 4, I've a trunkful of stories that need to be published or sent for submission, they're doing no one any good just sitting there on my hard drive.

huh. It's one of those months where the Friday 13th snuck up on us. Me. Ok, so I don't pay attention to this kind of thing and it's always fun when the calendary plays serendipity.

One of the little joys in the way back when was how the movie studio/producers for the Friday the 13th movie series would target these dates for their latest release. Of course the gag's more than run its course; one wonders how long it'll be before they drag it all back out again for a run at the new generations.

Just another day of fiction, not as many words as I'd like in an ideal world, not so few that I feel like I messed up. So, not too shabby then.

Day gig stuff, again, running here and there and yon and then sitting in on a meeting. The little things, I guess, and just another day, really.

After watching Croatia defeat England to move on to the Finals at the World Cup. Even with the extra time, it never really seemed like England was playing up to the level Croatia played at. And in the extra time, they really looked like they were trying for the tie and move on to penalty kicks, where Croatia were pressing all the way to the end.

I had to throttle back a little today on fiction writing, but I did get at least some way more into the current story. I had quite a bit of nonfiction writing for the day gig, so it was one of those days where self-defense of my wrists comes into play.

The day gig's in a bit of flux at the moment. I suspect that, though my keyboard time will remain roughly the same, the number of full-length reports I need to put out over a given month will drop a bit. I'm not certain of it yet, given the juggling that'll go on over the next couple weeks, but if it works out that way I should have a window where these sorts of short days will be less of an issue.

Then again, I don't want to promise myself anything like that without the dust having settled. All in all, a wait and see if it rolls to my favor the way I hope, and otherwise just keep up the pace as I've got it set at the moment.

I was all set to pontificate today. Say something about how yesterday I needed to choose between that which was important and that which I could do something about.

Truth is, I just forgot to blog. It's likely a hazard of my current writing schedule, which is sandwiched in between other things. I got my fiction words in, and then wandered off to do something else and never made it back to the computer.

The working life, on occasion. Got my fiction words in today, and then reminded myself to sit back down at the computer and write this instead of finding something else to dive into.

I'm about 2k words into another Open Wounds story at the moment. It was supposed to be a short story, but has all the shapings of working out a bit longer than that. I'll just dive into it and see where it goes, I suspect that I'm going to learn a few things I didn't know before this one came along. About Megan, and how she grew up away from Tony D'ags and crew, and about how the Brotherhood played a part in that.

This weekend was the first water-ski trip of the year... So, obviously, my plans went out the window for any weekend work.

And it was a blast. The storms were threatening, so it wasn't quite an all day, all weekend kind of thing. Out early yesterday, shore lunch and let's haul ass to get the boat back on the trailer ahead of the lightning headed our way.

But it was good to get out there. That's for sure.

I just finished the current story, it's called Degrees of Shade. It's the one I started last weekend on the trip.

It's a lesson to myself on how things can change when the story gets rolling. First few hundred words, and I just knew that the main character was going to bite it. It was all right there, the setup and the foreshadowing and all that.

As it turned out... well, let's just say he was a little more resourceful than I'd expected.

The people who tried to affect that death?

They're the ones who really underestimated him. And they'll learn how. He'll make sure of it.

(names aren't much relevant in his business, which is another thing he taught me along the way; another thing I learned is that I'm going to be wondering what he's up to down the road. He ain't nice, but he is very interesting and fun to write about/get to know)

I like today (4th of July) to celebrate the wild and ridiculous, half-baked ideas. And the dedication to realize them. So what if it's the work of years, decades, centuries? It's all gotta start somewhere.

And if "Those Who Know", or you yourself, think you're no perfect vessel, no Philosopher King?

So much the better. Do it anyway. There are no perfect humans this side of the Veil. Far better to hold the light and be burned than to sit in the back seat kvetching and getting nothing done.

(line from a story being told:)

If his mistake had been drinking on the job, hers had been to think the drug would do most of the work. Complacency'd set in; time to hang it up. Good thing he only had one more job to do.

And one more personal task. But that could wait. She wasn't going anywhere.

Back at home and into the grind. The workaday world relieved by the current story, which took a turn or two I didn't expect.

Basically, bright-lit noir, but not of the type that I expected. I sat down with my couple hundred words here, couple hundred there that I could get while away visiting with my grandmother, and then today I sat down here to dig into the next chunk of the story.

It stayed sun-bright and noir grim, but not the desert southwest sun pouring over your head like the weight of creation that I'd found myself in in the opening.

Silly bugger decided to treat me to a different view. Funny how that happens.

And fun. I can't wait to find out just how the tables are going to turn again.

last day of our trip weekend, and we'll be packing up. As soon as we get through my grandmother's breakfast.

I made the mistake of jumping on her bathroom scale. Ugh. Not that any of that has to do with this weekend trip. My lovely bride bought me a new pair of shorts this week, and that was my first warning that I've been letting my plate get away from me a little too much lately.

Sitting here in my grandmother's house, letting her overfeed us with a ridiculous amount of absolutely delicious food, and it just makes the whole belt-busting thing more acute. I'd already make my mental switch over to the lighter plate settings, so just like getting home will be a relief after a long drive, getting home to a slimmer diet for a while will be a nice switch.

After a pancake or two, of course ;) It's my grandmother's house, I'm no barbarian...