It could be that with trying to target the children's market with Sam, you might want to write the essays, or at least some variation on them, for kids' magazines like American Girl or Girl's Life-- the reason I suggest girl's magazines is because there always seems to be a desire for articles that paint math and the sciences in a positive way for young girls and coming from a woman, they hold a certain weight.

It's something to consider at any rate.

Awww, Ginger you just made my whole weekend.

Chapters 25 and 26 are done. More like it was one big chapter that got split. Chapter 26 was a tough one and was kicking my ass for awhile. That chapter may well be one that grows in revision. So much happens for the number of words expended that it feels a bit thin.

That's around 149,000 words. I need to think up a good blog post for today. I've got a big one, but it needs a bit of refinement before I post it.

I'd love to help on the magazine front, but I don't have the first clue.

After considering the mountain of revision notes, I think my new goal is finished by Christmas. OTOH, I think I'll have the rough draft done by the middle of July instead of the end. That would be a little under 4 months for the draft and a little over 5 months for the revision. I'm not all that optimistic on the revision schedule though.

Last night I wrote the start of Chapter 27. I had this bit of dialogue that I though was pretty good. Today I remembered that the two characters involved don't speak a common language. Dammit.

(catching up!)

Well, you're a stronger person than I am, Gud. Because I would be all, "Write your own book and stay the hell out of mine." So, um.

Heh. Pete had not read ANY of my book until, erm, the plane ride down to SF on Friday. Because while he would make a fantastic editor (especially a copy editor), I knew that having him offer me feedback while I was writing would be a quick trip to RantyTown for both of us.

I had to rip up another part of Chapter 27 right after I wrote it. Some characters were being accepting of something because I wanted them to come across as nice. I decided they had enough reason to not be accepting and being accepting made for a bit of piss poor story. When will Chapter 27 stop kicking my ass?

After 14 straight days of blog posts, I let yesterday get by without one. I blame the lawnmower of doom and another one of its electrical faults.

Chapter 27 and 28 have fallen victim to my keyboard now. That's 160,000 words. I'm in the home stretch now.

I do not know what I would do without baby name lists for various countries.