You're A Good Girl, Patty Hayes

So the sub-zero crap continues with impunity. You know it's cold when you step outside and in less than five seconds the inside of your nose freezes over. Ah, Iowa. I stood in Wal Mart today (because it's almost safer to stand still) and looked at a bunch of new DVD's that came out. I contemplated how wanting so many films are it seems lately, even good ones. I contemplated fiscal insolvency. And I contemplated girls who ride the kinds of bulls that don't throw you. If ever you are in the market for a girl, you should hope for one that isn't thrown by bull.

I don't know what to do with myself when I'm not writing. That much is obvious now. It all just wants to get out of me, regardless of how tired or bored I am. Like it has a deadline it has to meet or something. I was jotting down some notes for the third book in the sci-fi trilogy last night, when suddenly what was the broad strokes of a scene that was getting too big to keep in my head turned into what is probably the first chapter. And then I went back at it tonight.

It makes me kind of happy, actually, playing in my little sandbox again. I was thinking about the new King Kong movie, and one of the running gags in the trilogy is Kong references. Why Kong and not Star Wars I've wondered, but in each of the three books there's one explicit Kong homage and the third one features the best one, right at the top. For now, the third book is very very embryonic, but I like how it so far seems to lay down lots of foundation for what promises to be a fat book at the same time it moves with a ferocity I didn't expect. I'm not really hip to plunge into it right now (or anytime soon), so I'll see what comes of this first chapter and then see if I like it before doing any more.

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