Hello, Goddess, My Old Friend

Playing on the iPod: Something slow-moving with lots of flutes (that narrows it down...)
Meters swum yesterday: 1800

I was getting ready to write a post about how mopey and depressed I'd been lately when my old friend the Goddess of Fertility plowed into me like a tsunami. That's her on the left, preggers, nursing and surrounded by All Things Spring. And while it's grand to be staying up until all hours, writing my little heart out, flying along on not much sleep and dodging males for fear of quickening if I get too close, I gotta wonder if there's maybe something wrong with me. Don't normal writers just type about an hour a day and then forget about it? Or, by definition, is there no such thing as a normal writer? I dunno. To be sure, though, sometimes I'm cranking it out full tilt, sometimes I'm not not doing sh*t and sometimes (on a rare day) I do the type an hour and go to bed early thing. Honestly, though, not very bloody often.

In case you're wondering, I'm not bipolar. I've been tested. I have been depressed, and I may be depressed now, but damned if I can tell. As soon as the moon passes last quarter we may find out (tonight, 12:20 U.T.), but for the moment I'm just surfing away. Back in the old days I'd start snarfing sugar and caffiene right about now, to keep that high goin' as long as possible. Alas, I can't do that anymore. Maturity sucks.

The very wise Tammy told me that the reason Tolkein ended The Fellowship of the Ring in such a lousy spot was that the guy, being smart and all that, wrote the whole thing all at once. All 1800 pages or whatever the hell. The publisher had to arbitrarily decide where to chop it up, and that was just where the axe fell. So it's not like he chose to end it there. That's just what happened. Contractual obligations are ugly things sometimes. So here's my new plan; don't end Spellbinder. Well, sort of end it, but just keep goin', start Part the Third and let the publisher decide. This presumes I'm gonna find a publisher. Well, let's be optimistic about this thing.

Meantime, I'm taking suggestions about what to call the third one. Spellbinder got named by accident. Kellum was referring to Mindbender and said Spellbinder by mistake and I said, "Hey, I like that," and thus Part Two had a name. Reminds me of this unbelievably awful trio of vampire romance novels (unbelievably awful and vampire romance novels in one sentence; yep, that's redundant all right) called Confession, Possession and Obsession. My first thought was Mindbender, Spellbinder and Pathfinder, but there's not much about pathfinding in the third one (unless you count stumbling around lost, some of which will in fact happen) and let's face it, that calls to mind the unbelievably awful 2007 remake (unbelievably awful and remake in the same sentence; there I go again) of the 1988 Finnish stunner, Ofelas (Pathfinder). (Star Wars on skis. Find it. Rent it. Fall in love. )

So, seriously, I've been bouncing around titles for part three. Pretender. Left Fender. Return To Sender. My favorite so far is And the Nobel Prize Goes To...