Still working busily on this third Rocket Johnny episode. Tough scene that I need to get through, er , right now. (I should be doing that instead of writing this). And then, it's packing and cleaning in preparation for our trip. We leave either Saturday night or, more likely, Sunday morning.

My wonderful wife has locked me out of my e-mail. No, it's okay, I asked her too. The less internet I'm around, the better. Web 2.0 and Social Internet is wonderful stuff, but it IS distracting, especially when you can be as compulsive as I can. And I've got too much stuff to get done to be able to afford a day lost to just staring at the 'net.

I'll probably maintain this blog while I'm on the road. I can do entries from my phone after all. Then again, I might also go completely Dark for the couple of weeks we're gone. I'm sort of keen on that idea too. More keen the more I talk about it. But we'll see.

I have a list I made of "things that I need to get written." It's a long list. Novels, comics, short stories, serials. It's a long, long list. And depressing, in a way. Sort of like being very badly out of shape and very badly overweight and looking up at all the stairs in the Statue of Liberty. Ah well. It's good to have too many ideas than none at all.

...

I have just had, as I typed that last paragraph, a major idea for Rocket Johnny. which changes everything. So I am going to end this post and go engage in a tried-and-true writing technique which is: wash dishes and stare into space.

The title only sort of refers to the sound my pen makes as it puts words on paper, further advancing an episode that I am determined to get out of alive. It more refers to the feeling in my throat, and metaphorically, the feeling in my head. I am rapidly going from "sore throat and ugh" to "sore throat and sick..."

This fails to surprise me, since we leave for our trip this coming Sunday. Therefore, Zach and I will both get very ill before we go. And Something Unexpected Will Happen. What? I don't know, it will be unexpected. This is the nature of just-before-trips.

Right. Time to put small human to bed, then see if I can fix the house internet, and then get back to writing. And then go to bed thirty seconds before I sick-crash totally.

I am mid-episode, and it is midnight. Seems like a good time to pause for a moment and make a blog post.

(I like blogging. And I miss blogging. And because I want some gentle way to keep in touch with the world, especially during my upcoming trip, I think I may use blogging more. We'll see.)

I'm halfway through episode 3 of "Rocket Johnny". This is the final part of three-part opening story. It's a bear to write. I'm not enjoying this episode, I may as well tell you now, and I only enjoyed the last three pages of the previous episode. This one is such a slog.

But I'm plugging away. Writing serials is mostly about faith (I suppose it applies to lots of other writing too). I continue to not enjoy myself and work on this slog of an episode, keeping faith that somewhere in the future will be an episode that will shine, that will flow from my fingertips as if the gods themselves are channeling it. An episode that can do no wrong. Keeping the faith means that THIS episode is a bear...but maybe the next one, episode 4, will be that episode. And if it isn't, well, it might be episode 5...

We humans are a great one for faith. The next lottery ticket, the next votive candle, the next job application, the next girl-asked-out, the next story...might be the big one. And if it isn't, then there's the one after that. It's probably survival instinct. Or hilarious, to whatever cosmic entity is watching.

And if this post makes no sense to you, well, it's a little past midnight now and all the sensible and non-fiction-writing parts of my brain have gone to bed. (I mean the parts that don't write, not the parts that write non-fiction).

...

I am still reading The Best of Michael Moorcock and New Tricks by John Levitt. And I am feeling increasingly guilty about both. They are both being read to review on SFSignal.com, and it's taking me a long time to read them. Partially because I got sidetracked by a series of seven Star Trek articles.

But partially because the Moorcock book is just slowing me down. I don't want to really talk about it, because then what's the point of a review...but I'm not really keen on it. Which makes it hard to focus.

Especially when I have a book called The Physics of Superheroes whispering to me from the table. It's fantastic and funny, the thirty pages I've read so far. And very, very useful.

Okay. Enough bloggerel. Time to get back to writing. A couple more scenes before sleep happens, I hope.

(123)A testy testing post is what this is. just to see how well it works.

(hm. But why doesn't the "subject" of the text message turn up in the "title" of the post?)