So far today, I read two great novelettes (by Kai Ashante Wilson and Sam J. Miller), had breakfast with John Chu, wrote a brief cancer log and 900 words of the new short story. I've been sitting at the hotel breakfast table for a few hours now, periodically looking up to stare at the sunny palm trees. Getting stiff, so I think I'm going to take a break from the computer for a bit, walk around, think about when I want to get in a swim (I'm currently thinking 4-ish...).
A few Chronicles edits next, then another stretch of writing, I hope, probably after lunch. In some ways, it's a little annoying that I've started on a new story, because I really wanted to make strong progress on the novel this weekend, maybe10K words total, maybe more -- but it's all in the same universe, it all contributes, and I should just chill about it.
Amusingly, the new paragraphs this morning were about gardening:
"Anna had been standing on her back step, surveying the garden at her new house, when she first met Katya. Shed been trying to decide what to do with the plantings the previous owner had had a fondness for bright colors, and the yard was a riot of reds and oranges and yellows. Earth plants had adapted well to Ariel, and blazing roses and tall sunflowers dominated the yard. It was all a bit intense for Anna, quite a change from the grey station corridors shed lived in all her life. She was tempted to rip it all out and plant something blue and prickly instead. Shed need to do research; shed never planted anything in her life.Hello! The woman stood on far side of the wooden fence that delineated their property line, waving a cheerful gloved hand, holding a gardening trowel. Anna felt a cautious surge of optimism. Perhaps this woman would be a friend. Perhaps shed teach her how to keep plants alive.
Im Anna, she said, walking across the grass, wondering if she was killing anything as she went. There were little flowers under her feet, small and fragile. She reached out a hand across the low fence, and the woman reached for her, and then laughed and paused, switching the trowel to her left hand, pulling off her muddy glove. Revealing the slender fingers, and the webs between them. Anna forced herself to keep reaching out, to meet them, palm to palm, clasped together."