Random thoughts for a random thursday

I'm on my second cup of coffee (well, in terms of caffeine, the first full cup, since I brew it half-decaf), and still feeling scattered.  That means you get to bear the brunt of my hyper-linked morning thoughts.

My morning generally starts out with the aforementioned coffee, followed by walking the dog in the same general direction at the same general time with the 8th grader toward the middle school.  Notice how carefully that was worded.  I'm not walking my almost 14 year old to school. We live about a 1/2 mile away, and he's more than capable of getting there on his own. I promise, I'm not that much of a helicopter parent.  Truth is, he asks if I'm going to walk the dog with him in the mornings.  And when your teenage son actually invites you (even if it's an oblique invitation) to spend time with him, you jump at the chance.

Once back home, aforementioned dog (I'm liking the word aforementioned this morning.  Don't ask me why.) gets her breakfast.  I pour coffee number two and read emails and blogposts while NPR provides the background sound.

In my half-muddled morning state, many of the NPR stories go directly to my subconscious.  They do not pass go, they do not collect $200.  For the past few days, I've been considering the recent report about how the earth's distribution of mass changed after the earthquake in Chile and our day is measurably shorter.  I'm certain there's a story in that, though I have no idea what it is yet.

So, here's a true confession.  I'm lazy about housework and more disorganized than I want to be.  We've been home from Montana over a week and we are still not fully unpacked.  And several months ago, we agreed to be hosts for a fundraiser dinner for the school's PTO.  Which means we're hosting dinner for 6 Saturday night.  Cleaning, organizing, and putting crap away *must* be on the agenda over the next 2 days.  Oh, and then there's the cooking.

I'm still not fully engaged in the new WIP (work in progress).  The basic germ of the story is one I'm still excited about, but something in how I'm thinking about it isn't right yet.  If I am dragging my feet in the writing, it's my subconscious brain's way of flashing a yellow warning light.  I could push on, ignoring that signal, but I know from past experience, I'll be doing more harm than simply wasting time.  So it's back to thinking about the story.

But all is not lost in writer-land, good people.  Nephele Tempest, my lovely and gracious agent, (who has the most wonderful, lyrical name)  sent me back her marked up version of "The Between," my faerie/changeling novel.  She thinks it's full of story goodness, and her suggestions are primarily typos (and remarkably few of them, yay!) and a few story/plot questions. So I can turn to the work of editing while the new story is marinating a little while longer.

It's off to cross off some of the 'have to' items from the to do list, before I can jump into the 'want to' items.