In my mailbox today was the August issue of Realms of Fantasy, and what to my delight did I find inside? My friend Elizabeth Glover's story "Meta-Physics." Elizabeth read this story at Lunacon a couple of months ago, and I thought it was great, as did the rest of the packed room she read it to. I can't wait to curl up and appreciate it again. Congratulations, E!

Actually, I'd feel safer if these guys were running the department, not just consulting for it.

My good friend and fellow Odyssey '04 alum Jeff Lyman happens to be co-editor and contributor to the new anthology "Bad-Ass Faeries," which is being launched this weekend at Balticon. While I haven't had the pleasure of reading all the stories in the anthology, I have read Jeff's, and it is, indeed, bad-ass. Check it out and congratulations, Jeff!

I've just discovered that my good friend Bill Shunn's novella "Inclination" has made the final list for the Sturgeon. "Inclination" is also on the ballot for the Hugo Award and was a finalist for the Nebulas. It's a great story and richly deserves all the honors it has accrued this year. Congrats, Bill!

Also, congratulations to Paolo Bacigalupi, Paul Melko and all the other finalists.

I don't even have a joke for this.

I just saw this review of "Maledicte" by Lane Robins. I've never met Lane but she's an Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate, and I love to hear (and relay) good news about fellow Odyssey grads. Congratulations, Lane!

I was never a big fan of our mayor here in NYC, especially after watching him hug and kiss George Bush et al during the 2004 Republican Convention, and that whole West Side stadium thing really was a crap idea. But this one I like.

OK, Mikey boy, this makes up for forcing us to listen to your nasal whine on the news all the time.

Geez, they just did it on their own.

This is some scary stuff.

For the 3rd time in the space of 5 months, I'm sick.

Seriously, WTF!!! I swear, it's cause all that good stuff happened to me back in February. That's it, that's the last time I announce my good news. Bragging is like daring the universe to try and pick you off. At least that's what my Italian grandmother would have said. And who am I to argue with old-country wisdom?

They're making one of my favorite books, "The Dark is Rising", into a movie, and in the time-honored tradition of misguided studio tinkering, they're changing stuff.

When I was at NYU film school-- did I ever mention that I went to NYU film school? ;) --I had a class where the assignment was to come up with a pitch to give to Academy Award winning producer Jerome Hellman. To my surprise, some girl got up and pitched her concept of "The Dark is Rising" as a movie, making Will an American kid and moving the action of the story to, like, Connecticut or something. Well, of course, I argued with her, and, needless to say, I kicked her and her bad idea to the curb.

What is it with filmmakers that they don't trust young American audiences to identify with characters that aren't American? If I'm not mistaken, certain producers wanted to move Harry Potter to America, as well, and thank god they didn't, and see, all you Hollywood fuckheads, you still made an ass-load of money on those movies, so please, please stop pulling this crap.

And no, I'm not buying that whole "we updated the story to emphasize the theme of alienation" bullshit. Seriously, some half-assed hack writer reads Robert McKee and suddenly, oh, he's an expert on theme! What a crock.

So does this remind anyone else of that scene in "The Godfather" where Michael discovers that Sollozzo is trying to assassinate his father in the hospital, so he dresses up the young pizza guy to look like a heavy, and they both stand guard at Vito's bedside?

Jerry Falwell died today.

What do you think the odds are he took the "What Would Jesus Do" route and left all his money to the poor?

Me!

It's true, I have been feeling a little subtropically depressed lately.

I haven't been in the mood to do anything since I got back on Saturday. Not that I had much of a choice in my schedule. I had Sunday off, then, bang, right back to work on Monday. Why do I do this, again? Oh right, they pay me.

I am truly exhausted, though, so I haven't been getting up early to write, and I didn't get anything done in San Francisco, (knew that would happen.) I'm not going to beat myself up over it, however. The two long plane rides gave me lots of time to do critiques and make some edits to chapter 3, which I'm mailing out next week for my TNEO second round submission.

TNEO is short for The Never Ending Odyssey and it's the Odyssey Workshop extension week for writers who've been through the program. About twenty or so Odyssey grads participate every year, there are three submission deadlines (April 15th, May 15th and June 15th) and then at the end of July, everyone goes to New Hampshire and sits in a big circle and critiques each other's work. The submission and critiquing schedule is kinda grueling, especially around this time of year, since May is sweeps month, but the TNEO deadlines are the perfect goad to force me to write and, more importantly, finish things, so I struggle through it.

Chapter 3, which was giving me so much trouble a few weeks ago, is, well, still giving me trouble. I'm trying to shave some wordage off it, and, though it's not total crap, it's still not as good as I want it to be. Again, I just keep repeating to myself: it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be perfect. That seems to be making me feel a little better. But only a little.

Oh, and by the way, I HATE GOLF! I'm writing this in the control room, so, Andrew, you know what I'm talking about.

Worse than I thought.