Upside Down

My uncle John has Stage IV renal sarcomatoid carcinoma, which is very serious. He will start chemotherapy in a few weeks, and hopefully that with the surgery they did last week will be enough. I hope and pray.

A view of the space shuttle's underside from the ISS:



I wrote five pages in the new short story last night, not as good as the other night, but that's okay. I always have these nights where you're searching, trying out different things to see if they work or not. It's up to sixteen pages right now; I think it will be a thirty pager, or 7,500 words.

There's an interesting discussion over in the phorum at Caitlin's blog about her consideration of a pseudonym as she embarks on a YA novel, and also some stuff about just how long (or short) novels should be. She's working on her new novel, and expected it to go 200,000 words (EPIC TRILOGY ALERT - the second book of my trilogy, at 740 pages, was 185,000 words) but they capped her at 150,000 words. The reality is (if I ever get it published) the first book in the trilogy will have to do gangbusters to justify a sequel of that length.

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