I call it holiday inflation

First off: thanks. To everyone who reads this, reliably, or just the once. Even on accident. You make the list of things I'm thankful for this year. Other notables on the are the warm, fuzzy feeling I have concerning next year and looking back on the decisions I made this past one (see, I'm doing it, too, winding the year forward faster than the calendar).

So, I can talk about the writing that got done with a fresh mind for once because I wrote this very morning. Off work for Turkey Day, I felt that I owed it to myself to tend to an additional chapter this week. I think the secondary goal is to hit 20 before   the new year hits me. The chapter went well, even threw in a bit of extemporaneous plot that didn't seem too horrid (as I was writing it, that is; remember I said that for when I get around to editing it into the 3rd draft).

Also, this past weekend I had the occasion to do some legitimate research for that short story. And by legitimate I mean leaving the house, libraries, decimal system call numbers, the whole shebang. I took several books into a little corner of the four-story building, and read and scribbled and read and scribbled. The yellow notepad I have for such occasions is slowly filling up. The old man in me likes the idea that I'll be able to look back and flip through it and leap frog backwards in time between this project and that one. That is, if it isn't burned, stolen, dampened, or yellowed into intelligibility. Stupid technology and its efficiency.

So, all in all, it's been a good holiday. Reflecting on how things have gone thus far, you could say that I've received compensation for things I've bartered away, and I understand a little better about my satisfaction having less to do with the transactions being fair and more to do with my making full use of whatever I paid for.


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