Sunday, 22 July 2001

Boy it's hot! East Lansing was never this hot!

In acknowledgement of the heat, I've changed the "East Lansing" weather graphic on my Writing Progress page to "Champaign" weather. I've left the one on the Clarion Journal page as East Lansing.

It was hot enough to drive me out of the room I usually use for writing. Our apartment has an air conditioner in the living room, but the rest of the house doesn't really get much cooling. So, I got out my laptop, synchronized the files with the desktop machine, and then moved out to the living room. It is cooler, although I miss my usual space.

I'm making pretty good progress. It seems harder, somehow. The words came easily while I was at Clarion and the hard part was just finding time to write. At home it is still hard to find time to write, but even when I do, it's a struggle. I'm managing, though. And managing to enjoy it. And I'm pretty happy with what I'm writing.

I finished rough drafts of both of the articles I was working on. I'll revise them in a day or two. I also made progress on my insurance story. It's up to 1250 words. I didn't actually make any headway at the point where I left off yesterday, though. All the extra text is near the beginning, where I planted the seed for the decision the character will make in the end and introduced the first of the false alternatives. I now understand that goal of the next scene is to introduce the other false alternative. Knowing that should make it easier to write. So, it's coming along nicely, despite my difficulties.

It's great to be home. I miss all the people at Clarion and I miss the focus on writing, but I'm wonderfully pleased to be home.

Since I went right back to work as soon as I got home, I haven't had much unbroken time to spend with my wife. This weekend has helped set that right, even if I did spend a lot of time writing. Just being in the same room, me writing and her reading the New York Times, is being together.

After I switched to a goatee and started dressing all in black my brother hastened to point out that this wasn't so much an effect of Clarion as simply a family resemblance.