I've been rather insanely busy lately between working, working out, and working details. I've been working lots of details, mostly because I can. I have the free time, I have few other commitments, so why not make the extra money? I'll admit I went through a short period of burnout from not having any time off, but I'm actually taking some time off this week, plus the checks are coming in from all of my work in the past few weeks, so that's pretty nice.

But I guess the main reason that my journal entries have been exceedingly sparse is that I'm putting more effort into my dare entries--in fact I consider that to be my journal for now and I even put the occasional bit of personal news in there. Hard to motivate myself to do two entries per day.

Anyway, since I think only a small fraction of my "regular" readers are glancing at the dare entries, I'll just say that this past Sunday was the halfway point, and I have managed to lose 9 pounds, an inch and a half off my hips, an inch off my waist, and various inchage from various other spots as well. I'm certainly pleased with my progress. Tomorrow morning I plan on going to my doctor's office and getting some bloodwork done--cholesterol, sugar, thyroid--the whole shebang. My blood pressure was a delightful 100/60 at my most recent checkup--which I am well pleased with--and since I tend to run to high cholesterol and since adult-onset diabetes runs in my family, I want to see if the changes I've made in my eating have made any difference.

Went to see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with my mom recently. Totally cool movie!! Very hard to say what the movie is about since it has about 27 different layers to it, but it's a terrific movie, and it's a shame that so many people are leary of going to see it because of it being subtitled. The effects are incredible and the fight scenes are so fluid that after about ten minutes you don't even notice the subtitles, IMO. I highly recommend it if it is playing anywhere near you. (I was actually shocked when it came to one of our local theaters. I've become resigned to the fact that I live in a third world country and that if I want culture I have to go to New Orleans. Yech!)

Oh, and Baen finally rejected my novel manuscript after more than three years. Normally I don't give a shit whether the rejection I receive is personal or form--a rejection is a rejection, after all. But I was a bit annoyed that after keeping my ms for so long, and asking for a replacement ms after they lost the first one... well, I just think they could have had a tetch more class than to send me the Usual Form Letter that merely had "Dear Author" scrawled in at the top. You'd think that three years would at least qualify me to have my name written there. (And they didn't send the manuscript back, even though I'd included return postage with my original submission. Hmmf.)

But I'm honestly glad to have finally heard something. I'm not going to turn around and send it right back out--I've learned way too much about writing since I sent that thing out three years ago. Heck, that was before Clarion! I do plan on going through it and doing a very thorough cleanup and rewrite on it, and then think hard about where I want it to go. I'm in no rush. I still love writing even though I haven't been sending anything out lately. However, I also know that I don't really want to be a Writer for a living. I happen to totally love my job. I would be perfectly content to have stuff of mine published on a fairly regular basis while still being the SuperHero Crime Fighter that I am now.