On making progress

It's a month, since I resumed work on the urban fantasy (which I'd made a start on, oh, a year ago, but had to set aside to write 'River of the World'). There were 78 pages and a synopsis of sorts, notes towards a novel; there are now 215 pages, the bulk of a novel. This is good.

Even better, I was out yesterday committing ambulomancy (a word I have completely adopted), as I do, and I had my first sight of the remaining journey, the rest of the book as a whole, the landscape I need to travel through to get where I want to be. Forgive the geographical metaphors, but it really does feel like that: standing on a high place and getting an overview of all the terrain, in order.

Which means that this (the core of the aforementioned synopsis) -

"They meet danger, they meet deceit; they meet increasingly curious and powerful figures, and slowly they learn more than they bargained for. And so of course do we."

- has been transformed into an actual plot, with people doing stuff. Hurrah. And now, from here on in we have a small survivable shock, instantly followed by a fatal one; a negotiation, a compromise of sorts, doom delayed; a search resumed, and a terrible betrayal; a monstrous encounter, an ultimate sacrifice, an escape; a final confrontation, a resolution - and then a bitter twist.

And they say my books are slow, and not much happens. Bah, humbug...

Proof positive

I really should think before posting. Boasting. Every time I admit to being pleased with how the work is going, something comes along to trip me up.

In this instance, it's the proofs of my own little publishing venture, Phantoms at the Phil vol II. So instead of the thousand words I'd hoped to write before lunch, I've only written one page, perhaps a third of that. But I have also proofread a long third of Phantoms, which is good; and let's be honest, I do like being busy.

Should hear in the next week or so, whether we've got the funding for Phantoms III. Cross all your fingers; this proofing exercise is reminding me (as if I needed reminding), just how good this project is, what fine stories it yields. My own, clearly, excepted (I am contractually obliged to say that).

Soon now, sooooon, you-all will have the chance to see - and hear! - for yourselves, how good last year's crop was. Watch this space...

In which Big Butch is stared of Barry

Barry spends a lot of time in windows, gazing out. I assume this is to reproach me for not letting him out to commit mayhem in the neighbourhood; I assuage my guilt by trying to make him comfy, laying towels on windowsills &c.

When I pass a Barry-containing window, though, he usually takes note of me, if only to ensure that I have taken note of him. Tonight, on my way to m'bath, he was in the upstairs landing window as oftentimes at night, it gives him the best view of his back yard and all the other lovely tempting yards he can no longer get to - and he was very intent on something out there, so much so that he took no notice of me at all. Also, his tail was twitching.

So of course I looked - and whoa, big bad butch of a tom-cat, strolling along neighbour's back wall, heading for our yard. Barry didn't make a sound, he just stared. Incredulity, or rage? Who can say? He stared - and I swear, that cat felt it. It paused, on the very brink of our back wall; and looked straight up, straight at Barry; and crouched a little, and stared back. Again, no noise: just with the staring.

Barry is younger, lighter, much less experienced. He might have the reach in a boxing tourney, but I don't think reach applies in staring contests. I don't know what does apply, what the rules are; all I know is that Barry was triumphant. He totally pwned that cat. It never ventured a paw onto our territory; it turned and positively slunk away, and got the hell down off that wall as soon as ever it could.

At which point Barry jumped down from the windowsill and bit my ankles. In lieu, I guess. Whatever.

In other news: I still can't breathe. It's been a week since the asthma nurse gave me top marks for breathing management, and I haven't had a clean lungful since. Trouble is, if I went back tomorrow it'd take a week to get an appointment, and by then I'll either be better or dead. Whatever.