Yesterday was another good day to be a parent. Or at least, it was a good day to be Penny's parent. No new developments, but she was in a pretty good mood, even if she did get a little tired-fussy toward the end of the day.

She even slept very quietly, so I only woke up a few times during the night. Even then, I only looked at the clock, turned over, and went back to sleep. I'm beginning to think she's really got the hang of sleeping through the night.

I managed to capture a movie of her rolling over this morning. I'm sure it's really only of interest to Matt and I and possibly our parents, but if by chance you want to see it, I've posted it in my photo album - scroll down to the bottom of the page for movie links. (And yes, that's me dangling the doll for her and saying "There you go!" at the end.)

She's slowly getting used to being "on her own" (i.e., not being held) for longer and longer periods - to the great relief of the daycare minders, no doubt. It helps that she's starting to perceive the rest of the world as something she can interact with and manipulate - it means that toys are actually of some interest to her now, even if she's not actually playing with them much yet. So I can leave her in the saucer or on the floor for a few minutes while I do necessary morning things (like take my medicine and pack lunches) and count on her to be pretty calm about it.

Well, I can't leave her on the floor for very long anymore, now that she's rolling over. She likes to roll over, but once she's on her stomach, she gets irritable with it pretty quickly.

Let's talk about something that's only peripherally related to Penny.

Writing.

K.T. and I are about a quarter of the way in to the next novel, Silver and Green. I think in a way, this one will be much easier to write than Circle in the Sand. We've already got the whole plot mapped out in advance. We've decided who's writing which chapters, with the exception of just a few. The world and the magic system have already been sketched in, and large chunks of the history are already done. And we're both a lot more experienced now with the style and the tempo of novel writing.

On the other hand, we both have infants, and that's making it rather harder. K.T. is a stay-at-home mom, and while Jess isn't as high-maintenance as Penny, she still requires a high percentage of K.T.'s time and effort (and rightly so, of course).

I send Penny to daycare every morning, so I get longer chunks of baby-free time - but I'm at work. Where, theoretically, I should be at least occasionally working. And when I do spend time writing, I find that my attention span has become nearly as short as my daughter's. I find myself stopping in the middle of sentences and switching to other tasks. (If those other tasks would be other bits of writing, it would be easier to live with. But no; I have to stop and play half a game of Minesweeper.)

So despite being a shorter book, and despite our vast improvements in efficiency, this one may take us as long as the first to complete.

Ah, well. At least we don't have a contracted deadline to meet. That would be the silver lining of not having yet found a publisher, I suppose.

--Liz