A lot is changing this month. My job is moving to a new building and I'll be sitting with all new people. The novel has progressed towards the end of the second act. The third act is forming in my mind. The bridge is a bit rough right now, but that's what rewrites are for.
In honor of Haloween I read this book of spooky short stories. What I noticed was that women horror writers creep me out. I think it's becuase the female approach to horror is much more personal. More internal. It's easy to deal with the boogey man when he's something outside of you. What do you do when you discover that you are the boogey man? Or in this case, boogey woman.
The third act of the novel has become much clearer in my head. For a while I was worried about my ability to bring the story to a climax, but now it has become clear. There will be a climax. The stakes will be raised. This is fun.
I sat down this morning to jot down some notes on a story I had in mind. Instead of some notes I wound up with the whole story, done in one session. The work on the novel has paid off. Even if the novel itself never gets published it has taught me so much about writing and developing my own style. The new short story is a weird bit of fun about having lunch at Hooters with the voodoo god of the underworld.
Today I changed the inkarting section of the site over to a wiki. I'm on this kick of learning new technologies. The wiki is a cool tool which allows anyone in the world edit your web pages. As scary as that sounds it's actually working out pretty good. The best thing is that it takes the pressure off me to keep the thing updated.
After a couple or rough days at work I'm starting to settle in. I miss my former cube-mates but there is a certain solitude in where I am now. I'll have to wait and see what the long term effects are.
Sat down to do a rewrite of last week's short story but actually only made a few grammar corrections. She had nothing but praise. She's my toughest crtitic so praise for a story from her means something.
Just got back from several days in Santa Cruz. Rain mud and cold didn't ruin the fun and relaxation. Okay, the cold kind of sucked.
Finally gave in today and order the Ruby manuals. It's just too different for me to learn without some guidance.
Spent 13 hours at work today. Big project going live. Tired.