I'm sorry. I hope I'm not boring you with the fact that every entry seems to be "Yippee! I've finished another chapter in The Do Over!" Perhaps I should move this portion of my web journal to my Do Over site, and get back to more standard essay-type fare here.

But, well, this is what's going on in my life right now. Sure, I'm still thinking about politics, the nature of God, the problems of racism, and the joys of reconnecting with old friends and the sorrows of losing others. There's the tedium of bringing in the money to pay the mortgage. There's coordinating schedules around an increasingly packed daily planner. And there are meetings, meetings, meeting. Every evening this week, another meeting.

At night, though, after the dealing and the thinking and the meetings and the meals, Paulette goes to sleep and the phone stops ringing and there's just me, my computer, and a will to GET THIS THING FINISHED.

So I wrote a completely new scene today (one of the four or so unwritten but required scenes that I had had outstanding... which means I'm down to three now) to kick off Chapter 12, retooled the beginning of another and make some major modifications to a third. (A fourth scene required very little tweakage.) It ain't one of the longest chapters in the book, but it's another coherent chunk of the beast that is finally ready to be seen.

This is certainly not the final draft; the idea, though, is to have a presentable draft.

Which reminds me: there are now *five* authors who have taken on the el Gaucho challenge. This is exciting, but it raises the stakes for anyone who doesn't live up to the challenge. Judith has proclaimed February to be Finish Your Book Already Month, or FYBAM. Anyone who takes the challenge to finish his/her novel by the end of this month but doesn't make the deadline is going to be picking up the dinner tab at el Gaucho for those who do. el Gaucho, home of amazing steaks. Mmmmm.

The time is now 3:23am, Pacific. Some of you on the East Coast are just now getting up. Guess it's time for me to finally go to bed.

At least I can rest knowing that I've put in another solid day's work... and, that really matters.