1. Breakfast at the neighborhood breakfast joint where we've never eaten even though it's literally across the street. I went for straight-forward bacon and eggs, but they have a fine array of Mexican-inflected items on the menu I want to try. It was really good. And it was right across the street. It's going to make me so fat.

2. Shopped for toilet paper and Cheerios. Then got my mom the first Midnighters book and The Lightning Thief for Mother's Day.

3. Hit up a coffee joint and worked on the series proposal I'm hoping to wrap up this week.

4. Happy-hour sushi. Including one-cent sake. Yum. Oof. Yum.

5. Beach.



6. Starship-motortrike.



7. Mississippi paddle-wheel traversing a bay in San Diego between two Polynesian resorts.

So tired. Rush show was awesome, fun time had by all. Bought a tour shirt, my first since "Hold Your Fire" in 1988. That one was a flimsy, long, narrow tube with sleeves, like a t-shirt made for asparagus. This one is very much more shirt-like.

Since there was miraculously no traffic between San Diego and LA, I never once had to dip below 70mph and made it to Culver City with time to spare, which I used productively at a coffee joint to do some outlining-type stuff on the new novel.

In the news, a teacher is accused of wizardry for making a toothpick disappear.

Starting a new book!

Just tippy-typing some notes so far, actually.

I'm at a very pleasant coffee joint in Pacific Beach. I like this neighborhood. It's far enough north from Garnet Ave. that it might not be full of bar-hopping knuckleheads at night. And I can see ocean when I look down the street. Definitely an area to check out when the current lease runs dry in a few months.

Many thanks to everyone who commented with nice things about the almost-finished draft of my YA novel, Flotsam. I spent the last two days going through it, doing the meatball surgery that will get it to the Army hospital in Tokyo. Now, it goes off to the Blue Heaven workshop in June. I think I'm going to give my brain a day or two to rest, and then I start work on a proposal for my next book. But right now, I drink beer.

Why am I wearing a hat, you ask? I think the better question is, why aren't you?

I do not have a complete draft of my YA novel, but I have typed the first word of the first scene (the) and the last word of the last scene (laughed), and all the words in between. The reason why this doesn't constitute a first draft for me is because if I sent it out in the world in this shape, even to trusted first readers, it would die. The lungs are hanging on by mere threads. The heart is sewn onto the elbow.

So, what's required now is what they used to call meatball surgery on M*A*S*H. It's not polish and perfection. It's more stuff like, if the heroes employ a mummy in the climax to save the day, I have to actually go back and write in a mummy for them to employ.

This is a dangerous time for me. The language is clunky, the characters inconsistent, some of the plot business completely nonsensical, and not being able to fix all these things before people read the draft can push me pretty far out on the ledge of shame and despair. But I don't have time to fix all these things. I only have time to shove the heart into the chest cavity and hit it with my fist and scream, "Live, damn you, live!" Alan Alda-style.

It's been a gorgeous day for a walk. Sunny and clear, with a nice, crisp breeze. The bay and beach were quiet for a weekend afternoon, and there were a quesadilla and a Pacifico waiting at Rubio's.

But the best thing about the walk were the jellyfish! Alien creatures on the beach! I've been looking for them since we moved here, and finally they showed up! Jellyfish!





The rest:

Jellyfish - Mission Bay & Pacific Beach, April 2008

There are houses I like better, but this one has a more scalable cliff than the others, so I think I might steal it.



I'm not a huge fan of the architectural style (I favor the Craftsman), but the location is nice.



***

Just 500 words today. The ending is starting to take rough shape in my head. One thing's for certain: It will involve the kelp guys.

I haven't been posting many pics of writing from the coffee joint because I've seriously curtailed my coffee joint visits. I have this crazy, nutty dream of writing for a living someday, and though I'm nowhere near that point, it seems like it'd be smart to make sure writing isn't actually costing me money. So far this year, I'm still in the black.

I am writing the worst book in the world. I've read all the books in the world, and mine is the worst.

My book is so bad that I wouldn't even give it the satisfaction of being worked on this morning. Instead, I spent my morning writing session goofing off. Farting around. I rode my bike to the beach. I took a long walk. I drank coffee, and my coffee was nowhere near the vicinity of my computer, which is where my book is right now, busy being bad.

I took some pics as I walked, because I find the act of taking pics inspiring, even if the pictures themselves are not. I saw a sea serpent, a giant pelican wearing a vest, a pier that shook like a seismic eff-up every time the waves struck, and also a sweet old dog and Rotten Livers and the Trashbot 28.

See, book? I don't need you to have fun.

(Please don't be mad at me tomorrow, book.)

What I did instead of writing

Not having had a good writing weekend, I desperately required a productive morning. It was reasonably productive, thanks to the mojo of my trusty "A T.Rex Named Sue" coffee mug.



I said the day that my new Threadless Loch Ness Impostor t-shirt arrived would be the happiest day of my life. It just arrived, and I have to say, I'm pretty happy.



Lastly, this octopus mosaic in Pacific Beach has been making me happy for months.



Anything making you happy?

I've been going to my current kung fu school since October, and not ever, not even once, have I stopped in at the donut shop a few storefronts down. But, oh, god, did I want a jelly-filled sugar raised today.

ETA: I think I left this unintentionally ambiguous. I bypassed the jelly-filled donut. I still have had no donut, and I feel I should be given a black belt for my sacrifice.

***

Writing.

Not liking the writing much this morning, but no complaints about the coffee joint.

No, seriously. Vampyroteuthis infernalis:



(courtesy TONMO.com: The Octopus News Magazine).

I'm not yet clued into the rhythms of the seasons in San Diego, but the tourist season must have officially begun. The beaches this weekend were crowded, the paddlewheel boat was running across the bay, the trail was full of bikes and skaters and pedestrians, and Sea World is at this moment firing off artillery (just fireworks, but it sounds like we're being shelled).

For the first time in many years, I am not dreading summer. If it gets to be 115 degrees it'll be due to environmental collapse rather than business as usual.

Anyway, I think it's only supposed to be, like, 60 degrees tomorrow with fog.

Getting back on track with the book after several days away. I've been working at home instead of coffee joints, mostly in the interest of saving money, but made an exception today. I'm up at the E Street Café in Encinitas, which has nice, big tables, free WiFi, accessible electrical outlets (mainly because I brought my own extension cord), and a beach.



A few of the beach, with giant shelled ocean bugs:

Encinitas - March 20, 2008

A few more, just one click away:

California Road Trip - March 2008

DIE YOU FUCKING ANTS EVERY SQUIGGLY ONE OF YOU DIE DIE DIE DIIIIIIIIIIEE!!!!!!!!!

***

Other than that, though, it's been a rather excellent day. One of the best things about moving from Phoenix is now there's a whole entire city to discover. A whole city! With stuff in it! That I don't know what it is or where it's been put! Previous to coming here to live, my experience with San Diego was limited to a few family trips to Sea World or the zoo and a couple of Comic-Cons. But it's turning out to be so much more than Shamu and asphyxiation from too many Doom Patrol fans.

Today we had lunch (me with a pork chile Colorado and a Negra Modelo, Lisa with a lobster enchilada/fish taco combo) in University Heights, yet another nifty neighborhood full of neat coffee joints, restaurants, and cottages. Back in the early 1900's, the area was an ostrich farm, so there's lots of ostrich iconography all about. All the houses are built upon an ancient ostrich burial ground, and so on.



Afterwards we made the short drive to Midtown for snackage and work at Eclipse Chocolat, where I had a latte with super-special caramel made from sugar imported from the Hollow Earth.

I read the last 50 or so pages of my book, and though the last ten or so are rocky (major characters introduced and lots of exposition to get across), I encountered nothing fatal, so I just have to keep on writing.

The last couple of days have been good, too. Had burger and beers and ice cream shakes at Hodad's in Ocean Beach with the visiting Jackie and Chris, and then got to hang with Jackie more at Rebecca's. It's nice to be social. Even with Jackie.

I think I'm going to eat some wings now, washed down with hooligan beer.

Hope your Saturday's been good!

Video showing a fan-built model of Neil Peart and his drum kit (circa "Grace Under Pressure"), made from whiskey bottle caps, tin can lids, and shishkabob skewers. I doff my tuque to the guy's craft and dedication.



***

Commemorating another step in the process: Signing publishing contracts for Norse Code.