Fond of rumpots, crackpots, and how are you, Mr. Wilson?

Writing The Noise of Endless Wars is such an odd feast-or-famine situation—I'm either slamming it out like Hunter S. Thompson on deadline pressure and a handful of whatever pills he's on this week, or whining ad infinitum about my absent Muse like she ran off with the UPS guy or something. Unfortunately it's usually the latter, which is how I've managed to stretch the rough draft process out to nearly four years. Bad would-be novelist! No herbal tea for you!

But then there are those days when I get the convenient kick in the culottes from out of the proverbial blue. This week, it came from figmentj, who read me a random excerpt from a novel a relative of hers had self-published, an experience painful enough that the only way I could stop my right eyelid from twitching was to open up the ol' WIP and pound away with a shriek of "OH MY FNORKING GOD I AM SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT." Luckily, it worked to the tune of 3,258 words, more than the previous two months combined. It also meant getting down on paper The Scene, the image from a dream I had way back when that was the tent peg that I strung everything else to, and thus the scene I've been writing in my head since three months before I even started. (Needless to say, it needs work. I'm fine with that.)

The even better news means I have only one more ginormo-whammy scene to crank out, followed by a short epilogue, and this rough draft is omigodsIcan'tbelieveI'matypingthis finally done. As in capital-D-O-N-E finished. Then, of course, it's the red pen fandango, but at this point I'm actually looking forward to that bit. But for right now, my palms are sweating at the prospect of no longer being a presumptive novelist and instead being an actual, y'know, novelist. More coal, sailor, 'cause we're taking this baby up to ramming speed.

1) s00j show at Smith College on Saturday! With a disco ball! Only a few dozen in the audience, but with enough geek-fledgeling enthusiasm for five hundred. In the middle of "D&D," a dice party broke out in the ostensible mosh pit area.

2) Toothache. Yay.

3) Job hunting. Much like a toothache, only without the party-like atmosphere. Spent some of today chatting with temp agencies. Wish me luck.

4) The novel. I'm slowly coming to realize that I may have written myself into a corner with my prospective ending. This does not please me.

5) The novel again. In writing item #4 just now, my sub-brain operating in background mode may have actually solved the problem. Huh.

6) My dad, who may be coming to Boston on a business trip in June! Calloo, callay! There shall be lunch on a business account!

7) Mt. Holyoke College. While visiting figmentj over the weekend, something less than a riot but greater than a "can you keep it down" police visit broke out at one of the other residence halls. Someone got maced apparently, but all we knew about were the flashing blue-and-reds and a great number of people scurrying about in a cheese-it-the-five-0 fashion. Exciting!

8) Sleep. HA HA HA HA! But seriously, folks.

9) Creaking doors. The neighbor has one, and it's been sloooooowly groaning back and forth all expletive-deleteding day, and I want you all to know that I love you just in case this dissolves into a hostage situation.

10) Knickers. figmentj and I have determined that we need to use the word "knickers" more often. And "spunk." Knickers and spunk.