Yesterday was as decent a writing day as I needed to finish "The Black Alphabet." I did 987 words, W through Z, and reached THE END. The total for pt. two presently stands at 4,210, making it slightly longer than pt. one (3,674). The two parts together come to a total of 7,884 words. I'd thought that pt. two would take me two days, as did pt. one; instead, it needed six days. And that's just the way it goes sometimes.

There were thundershowers late yesterday, which was nice. Not much else to report. We had a short walk. Spooky did a lot of work finishing up the new doll, whom I've named Snapdragon. You can see her here. Turns out, she has a part to play in Joey LaFaye as well. Watched The Sopranos. Read Chapter 14 of Hutton's The Triumph of the Moon ("The Wider Context: Reinforcement"). Did some work with the Ogham deck (and griped about the silly pseudohistory and pseudoarchaeology at the back of Liz and Colin Murray's book which accompanies the deck). I also got out my Victorian Tarot, which was a birthday gift from grandmofhelsing back in 2003, but which I've not worked with in years. I think I got to sleep about two and was awake this morning about 8:45. Some nightmare I cannot now recall, and that, at least, is something of which to be glad.

Today, we're taking Spooky's iBook to the Apple Store at Lennox, an annoying drive in the heat and light and traffic that we've been putting off for months. We both suspect the problem is the logic board. Later this afternoon, I'll be proofreading.

At some point between the acceptance of the final draft of Murder of Angels and now, Penguin changed its policy regarding "fair use" of song lyrics for epigraphs from two lines equal "fair use" to zero lines equal "fair use." Which means I now have to contact the Decemberists and try to obtain permission to quote two lines from "Of Angels and Angles," which I've used as the opening epigraph in Daughter of Hounds. I fear that in the future I shall restrict my use of epigraphs to those things which are firmly and indisputably in the public domain.

Right. Well, that's enough for now. The day's impatient.