Tuesday,
November 13, 2001

Bye-bye bachelorhood

Daily word count: 840

Word count for the month: 7,000

Okay, I managed to jumpstart the writing thing, so at least I'm not stuck quite so pathetically at 6,000+ words. Now I'm stuck pathetically at 7,000 words. Yup, that's an improvement. Not.

At least I had a chance to reread the first chapter -- it needs a lot of editing (which is unsurprising, as it's fresh off the keyboard) but all in all I really like it -- the setup is interesting, I like the characters and I think I may actually have an interesting story here. I think the one thing I really have to do is make David a little more proactive -- at the moment, he strikes me as somewhat passive, and since he is the person who's going to wind up saving Dallas and the rest of the world from a power-hungry Egyptian queen, he really needs to be a little more upfront with the cojones.

Hum. I just got a very, very evil idea of how to fix that -- I need to see how well it all works.

On the work front, I still don't know much about the tool I'm supposed to be documenting, but I'm feverishly uncovering as much information about it as possible, and I'll be pleading ignorance and begging the lovely marketing guy (a lamb named Len) for as much help as is humanly possible in the next couple of weeks. Which makes my head hurt because I'd really prefer to have this stuff down on paper, but apparently the bulk of what I need to know only exists in select heads. I may have to start carrying around a tape recorder for when I debrief people.

On the home front, Lyndon came back tonight, and is now a permanent resident of Plano, much to the regret of some young thing in his Swedish office who threw her arms around him and gave him a goodbye hug and kiss during his going-away party. He's always astounded when this happens, and I keep telling him that he's much more appealing than he thinks he is. In any case, he'll start work at Ericsson next Monday (much to the delight of some blonde in the building who was flirting up a storm with him when he was last here), and is going to spend the rest of this week finishing up his office, going through all his purchases over the last ten months and enjoying the fact that he's no longer in Sweden. In the meantime, I need to start taking him out and giving him a chance to drive, in preparation for him going in to get his license next week (please God). As it is, I have to drive him in to work Monday morning, then cut across North Dallas **whimper** to get to Irving. Yeah, the sooner he gets his license, the better.

Of course, I now have to get used to having someone around the house again, which is making me surprisingly grumpy. I hate to admit it, but I think I'm more inclined to be a hermitess than a social butterfly.