We had a slushing of snow last night (which is like a dusting, but sloppier) which we weren’t expecting and only discovered when we received an automated call telling us school would be starting 2 hours late.

Now I’m behind on everything I need to do today. For instance:

I have to finish up the chili I put in the crockpot last night and jam it into our refridgerator somehow.

I have to vacuum. A good half hour was spent fixing the damn thing yesterday, and that’s after more than a week of struggling with it. Our carpet is really, really in need of a vacuuming right now, and that’s what I’m going to do next.

Recycling needs to be done.

And so on.

But before I get to the vacuuming and writing my words for today, I have to post this for geniusofevil:

When I came back to writing as an adult, and decided to pursue it seriously, I was trying to write for the movies. I wrote thrillers and zombie space comedies and alien invader scripts and so on. Twice I tried to make the move to L.A. but punked out both times. Once back in Seattle, I got together with a friend to make our own low budget horror films, but that didn’t work out well for me.

And I realized I had changed in the last few years. I now preferred books to movies and so I went back to writing fiction.

So! When I received a note from my editor that I should hold off on writing book three because she had a concern about the proposal, I felt a little sick. I couldn’t help thinking of that scene in SUNSET BOULEVARD where the producer wants to change the writer’s submarine thriller in a comedy about women’s baseball. And I was remembering going through the script I wrote for our horror film with my director, and all the changes he wanted me to make.

But I was startled by the notes I actually received. It wasn’t “Make sure [supporting character x] appears by page fifty and stays through to the end. We like that character.” Nor was it “This setting won’t work for us. What else do you have?”

It was all suggestions about making the book work. Very polite suggestions, too, (which makes me want to take them all the more). “This sounds interesting and should make a good contrast with the previous books.’ “Will this character be appearing?” “Be sure to tell us if [minor character y] survived book two.” “I’d like to see more exploration of the group they belong to.”

And so on. All good ideas, even if I’m not sure I have room in the book to implement them, and all designed to make it a deeper book than I would have written otherwise. Not once did she suggest that I add a sexy, sexy love interest or a zany chimp, and Pikachu help me, I don’t know why I expected it.

Okay. I’m off to work.