It actually feels almost sort of kind of like fall! I even slept under my comforter last night, for the first time in a while. It's supposed to get a little warmer through the rest of the week, so I doubt summer is entirely over, and sometimes that's even more irritating, when just as you get to the "whee! it's fall!" mindset it turns back into summer. But, still, yesterday I managed to feel a little cool while I was outside and then got almost cold at night. I celebrated the coolness this morning by baking scones and making a pot of tea for breakfast.
Yesterday I enjoyed the lovely weather by going to see Stardust again. I know going to a movie seems like a weird way to deal with a lovely day, but I walked to the theater, which meant I was outdoors more than I might usually be, and it was nice to be able to do so without getting hot and sweaty. Instead of stepping out of the air-conditioned theater and getting hit with hot, humid air, it was cool and refreshing outside. I think I loved the movie even more the second time. It ends with the perfect grace note that makes me happy and leaves the tiniest tear in my eye at the same time. I can't wait for this one to come out on DVD. I have a feeling it will become my cure-for-a-bad-day movie.
While walking home, I got a kind of idea for a book. Well, not really an idea, not in the sense of "I'm going to write a story about this person who does this thing." It was more of a feeling, the sense that I want to write something that generates a particular feeling. There was a flash of imagery to go with the feeling, but it was very fleeting and I can't quite recapture it. It remains stubbornly just out of reach. I think it's going to be something structured along the lines of a Shakespearean comedy, with some mistaken identity and a few romantic polygons until everything gets sorted out properly, and it will be a standalone book instead of a set up for a series, unless maybe it's the kind of series that isn't really connected, where it's a lot of different stories taking place in the same universe, with perhaps some recurring secondary characters. And that's all I've got right now. I've learned not to force these things. It's like when there's something you're trying to remember, like the name of someone who came up in conversation, and you could describe all sorts of things about them, but still drew a blank on their name so that the people you were talking to had no idea who you were talking about. As is so often the case in those situations, it will come to me in the middle of the night when I'm not thinking about it at all, and then it will feel so very obvious that I can't believe I couldn't remember. That will be the time to write the book. In the meantime, I'll shove it back into the Idea Generating Machine to percolate while I do other stuff, like revise/rewrite the current book, write an article and deal with copy edits on the upcoming book.
Jennifer Crusie has been posting about her office clean-up efforts, and I might be inspired. Mine isn't quite as bad as hers was, but it's pretty close. I think that may go on my October agenda, to just try to spend fifteen minutes a day working on my office. The rest of the house is in semi-decent shape. I'd love to have the place all nice for the holiday season so I can relax, enjoy my decorations and maybe even (gasp!) have some friends over. We're heading into my favorite time of year, and for the past several years I've been too busy and stressed to enjoy it. This year, I have no travel plans after the Browncoat Ball at the end of this month, I have no article or essay deadlines after October 1, and I don't currently have a book deadline. If the new book happens to sell, it's already written, so even if there are revisions to do, they're not likely to have an urgent deadline attached to them. And even if they want a sequel, that's not likely to be due for quite a while, so I may have an entire autumn and holiday season without being totally swamped. I haven't done that since 2003.
But first I have to get through the next couple of weeks, when I do have deadlines, and a convention and now jury duty (ugh). So, off to work on an article! Thus ends the rambling for the day.
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