because stealing can be a good thing

Vewy sleepy, as the lispy spider says to the buzzy fly. I didn't sleep well at all last night and now I find myself in the library, seduced by trashy magazines because it's okay to read trashy magazines in the library. No, really.

Still perfectly lovely fallish weather here, in case you were wondering. We drove out to Adair County to see Christopher's family yesterday afternoon, after some library time. It was a nice time, great place, good food. Then, I actually got back to work on the YA in the car on the way home. I think I'm about 20-30 pages from the end. This is a woohoo kind of moment. I sent off the first 75-80 pages to a wonderful, genius friend and that somehow freed me to work. I believe what Ernest Lehman said about getting rid of it sometimes being the only way to see how to fix it, how to do it, how to finish for real.

So, that's nice. We were on our way to Argentine tango, but I'm tired, and yes, it's more interesting and we'll probably take the next class in it or one of its variations. But it looks like Mr. Barzak's the winner for now with salsa. I feel like Wednesday night salsa just across the street is more the thing right now and I am in the mood to dance.

Stealing is okay, especially when it's from someone industrious like Greg So, I'm gonna steal his plan to finish everything in progress by Jan. 1.

For me these things are:

The YA, finish first draft and revise
Finish and revise and send out that ghost story set in high school
Revise and send out my time travel story
Revise and send out my Romeo and Juliet story
Finish and revise and send out the zombie/city/syphyllis story
Write my column for Lady Churchill's
Send out some letters and then some scripts
Finish first draft of new script (though I'm willing to let this one slide to next year)

Not in that order. It feels doable. Lot of stuff, but most of it nearly done. I must be forgetting something.