24 September 2002

Hey, it's Braz's birthday! Happy Birthday, Braz!

Matt seems to be coping reasonably well with being up in New Jersey. Of course the project he's on isn't really in an emergency, like they told him it was, but at least it sounds like most of the people he's working with up there are pretty nice. They're even going to all go see a baseball game later this week.

Yesterday for me was... eh. I got hit with three "do-this-quick" panic jobs before I'd even finished my journal entry. I went and did them before finishing my journal entry. I still got the journal entry up before 8:30, which tells you how long it took me to do the three jobs.

I got another panic job while I was still reading my "dailies" and I got that finished in short order, too. The project leader rolled in around 10:30 to talk to Random about something, acknowledged that I had nothing to work on, promised me something, then rolled out again. I didn't hear from him for the rest of the day.

I started writing the chapter of the novel that I've been putting off. We added this lovely intrigue plot to the first part, so it wouldn't be just a romance. And I'm even pretty happy with the plot itself. But yesterday I set myself the task of writing the trial scene, in which our Bad Guy would be unmasked.

These are not scenes at which I excel. Stilted dialog, stuttering movement, a complete lack of necessary tension...

I wrote it, but I'm really just considering it a loose framework around which many changes will be made.

On the other hand, when I first wrote the prologue, I thought it was awful, and now I rather like it. So I guess we'll see. I don't expect lightning to strike twice, though.

(The good news, though, is that I've got two or three bits that need some major revision, and one more 'script to convert, and then my "assigned" bits for Part One are finished! Which gives me reason to believe I might be done and ready to move on to Part Two as early as next week!)

No Ashby last night, damn it, so the Two Sanriels plot advanced no further. On the other hand K.T.'s plot - whatever we're calling it - went all kinds of places.

Kevil's going to get himself in trouble, I can just tell. And in so many ways... Hell, he's this close to falling in love with one of the NPCs. He's such a sucker for strong, brave women. Not that it matters; he promised Loria that he'd be faithful to her, and he has no intention of breaking his word. He'll just have to love from afar, like he does Lisl.

(Okay, I might've put Lisl in there just to tweak Karen.)

But seriously, he's about to rush off and do rash things, and certainly none of the other Patrons are likely to slow him down. I'm enjoying playing Zoya on this, actually. She's being such a pessimist. "Just because they're downtrodden and enslaved doesn't mean their cause is the right one!" "Just because he's a schmuck doesn't mean his enemies aren't worse!" No one is listening to her, of course, but I'm rather enjoying it.

--Liz