I'm starting to feel nominally professional about my writing. This feeling has come about mainly due to Angela Livingston, who a while back offered to help me find ways to get Critical Hits published and has been a persistent, but not annoying, force towards making an effort towards in that direction. We met up early this past Sunday afternoon, and she put forth, in simple terms and on paper, her strategy for getting CH in the hands of potentially interested folks. She also delivered unto me a copy of a particular word-processing program, which was lent to her on my behalf by one Match Kilfoil. Cheers, comrades.

Anyway, I've started revising Critical Hits again, as well as transferring/creating newer Unheimlich material. I am thoroughly enjoying both activities, and have even set out to discipline myself in regards to working on the two projects. Should I not lapse, I will work on CH in the afternoons before work, and Unheimlich after work. If anyone has one of my CH manuscripts that they're not reading and would be willing to return to me, I'd appreciate it; trying to read 364 pages on-screen while making notes is a bitch.

This new attempt at being professional, or at the very least disciplined, is refreshing. It almost reminds me of the early days of writing Axis Mundi Sum, when I would routinely crank out ten pages every afternoon or evening. I doubt that I'll ever get back to that level, but I'm not sure if I want to, given how much I hate rewriting. (Critical Hits is a slightly different story, because I haven't looked at it in ages, and the writing I'm doing these days should do CH a world of good.)

Tomorrow I need to make some phone calls. I feel bad about not making them sooner, but I can only hope that my guilt will be assuaged by the folks on the other end of the line. I also need to remember to bring Infinite Jest with me to work- earlier I found myself at my desk eyeballing the clock for the next reasonable time I could go have a cigarette and read more of it. Alas, but not really alas, I brought The Puppet and the Dwarf today instead of IJ. Useful change of pace, at the very least, and a fucking great treatment of Christianity- albeit one requiring a modern dictionary of pyschoanalysis und so weiter.

To top everything off, Elspeth is back in Houston, and I should get to see her this weekend.

Fuckin' A, things are All Right.

now playing: Sepultura, Beneath the Remains

P.S. Thanks to my new turntable, I rediscovered just exactly where I became enamored of the phrase 'all right,' only to turn it into a pseudo-philosophy: the bonus/"hidden' song on Kyuss' Sky Valley. Dig it, especially the pronunciation of "all right." THAT is the way it needs to be said when it means what I want it to mean.