Yeesh. I should've done this months ago! Getting up at 4:45 a.m. has turned me around, and made the days feel endless -- in a good way. Sure, I'm asleep by 10 p.m. or so most weeknights (so no phone calls, please!), but at least I have my nights to do what I like to do and hang out with Elizabeth.

We've been doing major yard work, getting ready for the big Yard Day 2003 coming up on Saturday, as my family gives Elizabeth her big graduation present -- a bunch of strong backs to tear apart her front yard, building flower beds and tilling up the soil.

Me, I hope to be in the backyard, painting the fence that's been primed for almost a year now...(I'm not a big fan of gardening.)

Thanks to more excellent feedback (thanks, Sam!) on the Last of the Hand novel, I feel extremely happy with my opening to that novel. I also pulled together all my sequel ideas and am almost done tweaking the synopsis. The cover letter is done (thanks, Scott!), and I should have a strong query package to mail out to unassuming agents and editors.

I also started thinking about the Wannoshay novel, how to better focus that book, and realized that one of my main characters has to GO. Yep. Shontera is out, so I need to do some serious redrafting -- she wasn't adding a whole lot, really, and I think the two main characters of the book are Father Joshua and Blur junkie Ally, with Skin more of a secondary character. I've already revamped the synopsis. ;)

And I just finished up a list of agents (thanks, James!) so I can do a mass-mailing next Monday or so, once I have all the SASEs and envelopes and various other geegaws together. I predict spending most of the day Sunday doing this, as we all recover from beer and pizza with the Jaspers and Meyers after Yard Day '03.

So yeah, the days are just filled. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to reading more of The Etched City as well as my Intracities subs.

Maybe if I get up even EARLIER?