Now It Can Be Told

     I've been on the 3:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. shift all this week, which I find difficult.  Sleep is elusive, concentration fragmentary, digestion uncertain.

     This was compounded by Tam being out of town for the first couple of days of the week.

     I've been working on a short story in the I Work On A Starship universe for just about forever and in the last month, words have been coming slowly, if at all.  For some reason, I'd convinced myself that August would end on a Sunday and the last-Sunday-of-the-month writer's group I'm a member of would be meeting on the 31st.

     The 31st is a Saturday.  As it turns out -- and perhaps this is a surprise to you as much as it was to me -- there is no August 32nd.  Writer's group is this coming Sunday!

     There is a gun show this weekend.  The Data Viking will be visiting Saturday and we're darned well going to attend.

     After managing to get within shouting distance of 2000 additional words on my story and e-mailing it off to the group, I have four of their stories to analyze and comment on before Sunday afternoon -- and no phoning it in kind of job, either.  I spent too many years unable to find anyone at all to read my stuff and offer useful feedback to not do my best to return as good as I'm getting.

     So it looks like I'm going to be a little busy.

     I did finally manage to get seven really solid hours sleep last night and my day starts with a kind of fly-the-chair tech work that is "bursty," short interludes of frantic busyness at not-quite random times among a lot sitting and waiting.  Might at least manage some pre-reading.