It has been an unexpectedly busy day. I wrote, which made me happy. I cleaned the kitchen, which does not make me particularly happy in the act, but it’s nicer to have a clean kitchen. I shopped (Ted and I are making a concerted effort to get that “5 a day” fruits & veggies goal, and have been going through fruit like nobody’s business), I exercised *apart* from managing to get my 3 miles in, and I’m having a really productive discussion with an artist whose stuff was good, but stylistically not what I was looking for. He’s working on building a portfolio, and is going to do test pages despite knowing it probably won’t be what I’m after, on the logic that it’ll help *him* develop his style and potentially be good material to help him land future gigs. That, as far as I’m concerned, is just damned cool.
That’s one of the things–I’m sure I’ve talked about it before–that I really hope the Chance project will allow me to do: give people a, uhm, chance (I swear to God, it becomes embarrassingly easy to use that kind of phrase when talking about this project!) that they might not otherwise get. The down side is that if I *find* somebody like Ardian, who is just mind-blowingly talented, then my expectation is that the exposure is going to land him a better job. This is only a down side in that it means I have to go looking again: it is in fact the *perfect* scenario, as far as I’m concerned. I get huge romping joy out of Ardian’s Dresden gig. I cannot imagine a more satisfying conclusion to an artistic partnership than watching a talented artist get the attention he deserves*, and frankly, if I get lucky enough to have to find a new artist every six issues, well, I’ll be doing something right. :)
I am shortly going to go make a dinner of astounding good-for-usness, and then I may read this manuscript I’ve been asked to blurb. I actually want to read. This is *wonderful*. Reading while writing is very hard, and because it’s an urban fantasy manuscript and I’m writing big fat epic fantasy stuff right now, it suggests that I have gotten far enough out of the Negotiator headspace and far enough *in* to TPC to maybe be able to enjoy a book or two now.
Sadly, it means I’m not going to be reading YSABEL until this summer, and it’s already been out, what, a year? Still, as long as I want to read *anything* it’s a win.
*Ok, I can imagine a more satisfying conclusion, which would involve me *also* getting…I was going to say accolades, but I’m not that worried about accolades. Big fat checks would be nice, though. :)
ytd wordcount: 18,000
miles to Minas Tirith: 29.4
listening to: Bon Jovi, This Ain’t A Love Song