Okay, so I didn't get 'round to writing anything yesterday, so what? I think I was a little burned out, to be honest, and I didn't have much time to sit down and write, not even for a few minutes over lunch. Sometimes the old eyes need a break from the screen, you know?

I made some really nice progress today, though. I finished chapter 12, and all the pieces are really coming together. All my research is paying off, and as I'm learning with good tidbits of history, the story starts to almost write itself.

And I also did some planning and outline-tweaking for upcoming chapters, so I'm set up nicely to jam in the coming week.

Oh hey -- my colloborator Aaron and I finished up the SF screenplay! I sent it out this morning, and man, it turned out amazingly well. I have high hopes for it, and as an extra added bonus I got to learn a lot about screenplay format. So look for the short film "The Last Jack" coming to a screen near you. We hope.

And now I'm going to wipe off the inch of yellow pollen covering our entire back deck and do some READING! Wahoo! What a treat! And then tonight we're going to a housewarming party for our friends Josh and Cammie, over in Chapel Hill. Imagine that -- Mike and Lizzie climbing out of their caves and being sociable. Scary!

Now Playing:
"Memphis, TN," Pearl Jam

Now Reading:
F&SF, Asimov's, May 2003; more Intracities subs

Stories out to Publishers:
18

Today's Words:
1,500

Words for '03:
52,500

Today's Quote:
“All right, she said in a soft voice. “We’ve got all these little tidbits of facts going on here. But none of them are fitting together and making sense yet. She talked about Pilot Town and Portsmouth. Do you know where those places are?”

“This is Pilot Town,” Mitch said. When Ella gave him a blank look, he continued. “Before Ocracoke became a real place on the map, folks called it Pilot Town. All the ships passed through this area, because of the calm waters. And Portsmouth is just a few miles, thataway,” he added, pointing vaguely out at Silver Lake, in the direction of the Coast Guard Station and the ferry dock.

“I think we need to do some exploring,” Ella said. “Maybe we can talk to some people and check out some places that Caroline may have visited. We’ll see if we can’t learn find some of those so-called spirit fingerprints for Caroline and Stede Bonnet.”