This is my only day at home this week; a flurry of housework, lawn watering and tea-making has me up and out of my chair every five minutes or so. Yesterday I took my father to his surgery follow-up; Monday I went to Yreka to do some errands. Tomorrow and Friday I’m in Mt. Shasta/Dunsmuir. No idea what’s going on this weekend.

I took my Selene notebook down to one of my café haunts yesterday for a quick bite to eat. I took a few notes; did a lot more thinking than writing, both then and later on, at Barnes & Noble. I looked through Universe, which I really need to pick up one of these days, and found a simple but highly useful map of both the near and far sides of the Moon, and a photograph that I need to track down and download. (The glorious thing about astrophotography and spaceflight-related images is that almost all of them are public domain; it’s just a matter of finding out what took the picture and when, and where to dig it up.)

Speaking of Selene, and the short story I keep whingeing over but not actually showing evidence of having written: I’ve decided to let the Return to Luna contest pass me by. I feel that I have a strong story idea, good characterization and some fun scenes to write, but certain restrictions in the contest would do the story a disservice. I think I can do more with it, without it. When I’m done, I will select a magazine and submit it. This I promise. (Publicly.)

I’m not as torn up about missing the deadline as I thought I’d be; I think that, much like something I experienced while applying to grad school in 2003, this was a stepping-stone, meant to put me on the right track, or in the right place, at the right time. I have the closest thing I’ve ever had to a real honest-to-goodness story right now, and it will be written before the month is over. (This I promise. Publicly.)