Perhaps I've finally found the one copy-editor on earth who doesn't gripe my ass, or perhaps I'm mellowing in my old age. Either way, I made it through the first 151 pages of the CEM of Daughter of Hounds without having a fit, throwing anything, calling upon the wrath of the Old Ones to smite all humanity, or getting indigestion. Frell, I didn't even have to write stet all that many times. The copy-editor actually caught, you know, mistakes, and there was almost no attempt to rewrite my text. What's the world coming to? If I can't count on copy-editors to screw up my mss., what can I count on? There were only a couple of things that made me groan, and they were minor and easily stetted. The mistaken insistence that both Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops should be lowercased because they are in common usage. No way. Not until the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature says so, and I know they never shall. Even the Chicago Manual of Style (15) defers to the ICZN. Oh, there was one amusing bit, when the ce mistook a quote from Poe (née Ann Danielewski) for a quote from that other Poe and inserted Edgar Allan. But that provided levity, more than anything else. Amazon preorders on Daughter of Hounds are going quite well, by the way, reaching as high as 7,797 yesterday. Like I said, order now if you want a first printing.

Anyway, that was late in the day, the work on the CEM (5 p.m. - 7 p.m.). Before that, I wrote the first 1,124 words on "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ghoul" (for Tales from the Woeful Platypus). I'd not expected it to be set in the 19th Century, which means it'll be my second 19th-Century piece in a row (following "The Cryomancer's Daughter (Murder Ballad No. 3)," which is set in some unspecified year not long after the American Civil War). And it's a ghoul story, which I suppose is obvious from the title. This is the first time my "multiverse" has overlapped with my erotica. All in all, yesterday was the sort of writing day I needed to be having every damn day for the last three weeks. Then I'd not be so horribly behind.

Only nine short days remaining until we depart for New England.

What else about yesterday? Well, there was much needed rain for most of the day, though the humidity was so high that when we took our evening walk at 10 p.m. it was still uncomfortably warm. I tweaked my vinaigrette recipe and made a second batch. Then, after dinner, we went out to Borders, which has been garishly remodeled, and picked up a copy of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, which will be our first trip novel. Somehow, I've yet to read a word by McCarthy, but this shall now be remedied. I did note that there were copies of both Low Red Moon and Murder of Angels on the shelves. I played about an hour's worth of Final Fantasy X between eleven and midnight, in anticipation of FF XII. And that was yesterday.

The drad new icon was snurched from matociquala (Elizabeth Bear), by the way. Long have I envied it and plotted this theft...

Er...there was something I was going to say about my MySpace page, but now I can't recall it was. Ah, well. Please have a look at the three remaining eBay auctions. Thank ye kindly.