I finally managed to crack "Bainbridge" yesterday. There's probably more optimism in that comment than there should be. Rather, I should say that I made a beginning, and it might be the correct beginning. Perhaps I'll know in another day or two. Spooky and I talked for an hour or so, and mostly it was me telling her how I didn't want to wind up writing "Waycross" again, or, for that matter, "Alabaster" or "In the Garden of Posionous Flowers," and how this would likely be the last time that I wrote Dancy. And then something occurred to me, which led to something else, and so forth, and quite suddenly I began to understand more about Dancy than I've ever even guessed at. How she may fit into the larger narrative of the novels, especially Murder of Angels. If I am right and what I started yesterday really is the beginning, then it's nothing anyone will expect. I know I certainly didn't expect it. And it's going to make a strange revelation of the last ten thousand words or so of Alabaster. I did 1,268 words on "Bainbridge" yesterday. It felt good to be writing again, and after so many days spent waiting for this story to begin, the words came in a great torrent. However, afterwards, reading it back to Spooky, I wasn't at all sure whether what had seemed very good while I was writing was anywhere near good enough. I suppose that's what I have to find out today.

Was there anything else to yesterday worth mentioning? I began reading Gerhard Maier's book on the Tendaguru expeditions, and then I read the first chapter of Ecoshamanism: Sacred Practices of Unity, Power and Earth Healing by James Endredy (Llewellyn Publications, 2005). At three o'clock a.m., neither I nor Spooky were sleepy, so I read her Lord Dunsany's "The Coming of the Sea." I've found that the lilt of Dunsany's prose is good when sleep won't come. But, otherwise, yesterday was a pretty unremarkable day.

There's a Washingston Post editorial which, I think, manages to get at precisely what is so very absurd and offensive about claims by John Gibson, Bill O'Reilly, the American Family Association, and various other conservative yahoos that "war" has been declared on Xmas. I admit I am curious, though, whether or not Halliburton will win the contract to pretend to rebuild Xmas when the imaginary war is over.

Well, back to the word mines. Remind me to tell you about the discovery of a faerie horseshoe in our driveway...