Yikes, this work day has about slipped by me, which is a good thing -- getting through ANY Monday is always a good thing.

Lots of odds and ends today, as I've been doing a couple-three things all day long, ever since getting up at 4:30 to do some more revisin' (well, technically I woke up at 3:30 when Drew woke up -- his ear infection's still bugging him -- but I dozed after that).

What've I done? Well, I've revised another chapter in the baseball novel, and I've got about 50 pages to go before I'm done! Just like that! Very cool -- I got rid of about 15 pages today -- more on that in a second.

I also sent out a story submission, will send out a novel query in today's mail if I get out of here in time, and just finished tweaking a story thanks to comments from a friend (thanks, Kathy!). I even did some day-job stuff, just for the heck of it.

Also, I just checked my voicemail at home, and someone from Xlibris called me! Did you know for a small fee I could get my novels published! How COOOOL! (What I want to know is -- HOW did they get my phone number?). Sheesh.

Thanks to Lizzie's assistance, I had a big block of time to work on my novel yesterday morning, something I've been dying to have for weeks. She hooked me up, and I not only finished another chapter of the novel blog, but I also jammed out a lot of revising on the novel.

As I was doing that, I realized I had one last major problem to fix in the book -- one of the characters, Edward Terwiliger Shoemaker, had to go. He wasn't working. So I chopped him completely out (luckily he arrived late in the book, with only 60 pages to go before the end). Isn't there a writer's term for that (excising a character)?

But I liked one of the scenes he was in so well, I wanted to share. So, inspired by Xlibris, I'm gonna self-publish it right here. Look for his scene in my next journal entry.

And that's about it, writing-wise for the day (I'm not going to harass you with those "Word Meter" graphics anymore, but I do have a new topic over in my discussion board where everyone can share their daily writing progress).

As a gift to myself, I did a pile of work on my fiction, and tonight I plan on enjoying myself with my lovely wife and son as we celebrate my big b-day -- yep, I turn 35 today. Ouch! Later...