The view from the edge of the dragon's cave....

Things look very strange.

Picture me... peeping my head from the edge of the dragon cave, ... a look outside, and I pop back in. Another look, and another pop... I do this about ten, fifteen times a day, getting glimpses of the landscape before I disappear into my hole, until finally, I have a patchy, random photo-in-the-round of reality as it appears to me. Wanna look?

I have edited 406 pages of Rampant and I still can't decide whether or not to cut one or two of the earlier sex scenes. THIS is EXACTLY why I treasure my beta readers. Eric? Littlewitch? Are you out there? Are you ready for round one? I think my brain is toast on this matter--I am at the place where I have no objectivity and everything I write must suck, suck large, and suck hard. I hate this place--it's like a knitting black hole. The only way to escape is to soldier on.

I have written, edited, and submitted 50 pages of 'If I Must'. I am... uncertain as to how I feel about this. Writing short contemporary fiction leaves me absolutely convinced that I forgot to go deeper into character depth and that I left out a vampire or a werewolf or something to make the plot tighter. But I liked Joel and Ian, and I think they're pretty hot. I have hopes for them-- but I won't find out if they found a home until after Sept. 1st.

The older kids left on Sunday to go camping with grandma--I came back from dropping them off, and Mate said, "The house feels like it lost weight."

I have a new acronym... but I can only use it when the kids ask me what's for dinner: Stuff Hanging In The Fridge & Under Cabinets, Kids! Yup... that's what I feel like when I have to cook!

We replaced out cable box/dvr--and lost the whole Season 4 of Supernatural in the process. I feel strangely bereft. And she disconnected the dvd player in the process, so I can't even watch Season's 1-3 to atone for my lost ones. I think I need to go read my own Wincest fanfic. It will make me feel better.

We have two hornets nests out under our eves. The cable girl killed one with something so foul, I don't think you can read the product label loud in the US-- but by gum, them fuckers was dead! Tomorrow I'm going out with a hose and a broom to kill the other next the old fashioned way. With squishing, squealing, grossness, and a healthy chance of getting stung.

I have noticed (and I've noticed this before) that almost the entire plot of the Disney's version of Cinderella is developed by characters OTHER than the principle characters. I like the movie, but, you know, the prince could have been sort of hot. Or he could have been a wife-beating control freak. I mean, all we really know is that his father was an interfering misogynist and the mice were really cool--and the duke had been, apparently, castrated at birth. Oh yeah-- we know her feet were hella small. I mean--THIS is what we build a classic movie on? I think I've been robbed!

I seem to have forgotten how to read stuff that's not on the computer. I've read plenty of e-books this summer (thanks, Jen!) but none of my paperbacks. Of course, the descent into the dragon's cave might have something to do with this. Maybe I'll try coming out of the damn thing tomorrow to see. (Besides--it smells rank in here!)

I got a request for Vulnerable to be reviewed by a big online 'zine. I sent in my author copy and a request to please don't base the entire review on the flaws, and now there's nothing to do but rip my nails off until my fingers bleed.

About two months ago, I sent a copy of Bitter Moon I & Bitter Moon II to a forward surgical officer in Afghanistan who participates in one of my forums fairly regularly. He left a very nice review for part II, and I found two things out today. Thing the first is that all the guys in his unit love it. I was moved very much--I guess guys in a surgical unit in a hostile land could sort of relate to Torrant's plight, regardless of his love life, yeah? The other thing is that part I never made it. He just got an empty envelope. I sent another copy, but now I'm wondering what happened to the first one... is it in someone's secret library? Has it been turned into toilet paper, what? The world may never know...

I sent both older kids to grandma's with homemade wool hats. T's was in camo-colored stripe, and Chicken's was in socks-that-rock, pink and blue--I folded up the brim and inserted some plastic canvas and made it a half-pipe hat. Visible love for a camping trip in the cold. Gotta love it.

And I made a serious investment in the following things: Two sets of pens, two sets of crayons, two boxes--one pink, one blue-- to put them in, two pairs of scissors and two sets of coloring books. Because I love my children, that's why. And I don't want to strangle them, that's why.

I'm off. I need to go fall asleep watching a movie now, and then wake up, stumble out to the living room and knit.