4am Tribe -- I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaack!  Did you miss me?  Because I sure missed you guys.

How was it, waking up at 4am again?  Aside from it taking me several long moments to realize it was my alarm going off this morning and not Emma's, I rolled out of bed with no real problems and started cracking down on "Haole" edits.  It's a good feeling, really.  I'm happy to be back at it.

If you had told me there was anything good about waking up that early 2 years ago I would've blown soda bubbles through my nose. 

There's something happening to our house, causing the floor in the living room to swell up in several spots.  Pretty soon I think the floor's going to split and some kind of hideous monster trapped beneath for centuries (or at least since the 60s), which is probably around the time are house was built) will spring up and do devilish things.  Yeah, there could be a seedling of a story here.  But first things first: we called the home warranty people.  They suspect it's plumbing.  That's nowhere near as exciting as monsters.  The jury's out whether or not it's more expensive than monsters.

On the plus side, I got up at 4am to work out some story ideas for what to do next.  I'm still not sure which story to tackle next.  The  funny thing is, I realized this morning that most of the story seeds were kind of depressing.  Or at least, pretty freaking dark.   I really should try to write a happy, heart-warming story one of these days.  I'm pretty sure I'll seriously dive into another Puritan Noir story in the not-too-distant future, because I really want to see Hawthorne kick some demon ass.  But surprisingly, I think out of the stuff I played with this morning, that one will take the most research (not to mention I imagine it will be around 5000 words  in length).  I've never been the best with research -- it intimidates me some.  So I think I'll work one of the others while I'm reseaching that one, and put Puritan Noir 2 on deck. 

People are beta-reading my novel.  This both excites and terrifies me.  

I haven't gotten up to write at 4am since Monday, and I'm okay with that.  I figure I'm entitled to a break.  But I'll probably rejoin my tribe pretty quick.  The only problem is that since I'm taking a break from the book, I'm floating between projects, unsure what to latch onto.  

I've played with ideas for what novel I'm going to work on next.  Currently, I think there's three potential possibilites.  A straight-up horror novel I originally wrote as a screenplay (although I'll probably pretty much rewrite the whole thing - I already rewrote the opening); a spiritual angst-ridden road-trip of a  novel; or a comical SF novel about politicians.  The last two scare me more because they will be so completley different structure-wise than anything else I've ever done.  On the plus-side, I don't think any of these novels will be as long as Fallen Horizon.  I will probably go with the straight-up horror one, because I think the plot conceit is good enough that if I don't do it, someone else will beat me to the punch.  Still, I'm just playing with ideas and I probably shouldn't even consider throwing myself into a new novel before I finish my current one.

So, short stories.  There's actually a couple of stories I could revisit.  Puritan Noir needs a polish, ditto Margaret the Troll.  But I'd like to do something brand new.  A new Puritan Noir story would be cool, but I kind of think I should find a home for the first one before I do that.  Right?  Maybe another story in the Last Respects universe?  Or something else? 

Maybe it's time to bring back out the Hats of War...

We have a bag of Seattle's Best coffee blend in our cupboard.  I bought it at the grocery store, because pretty much the only other brand they had was Starbucks, and I take issue with buying Starbucks coffee.  I don't mind Starbucks so much, but they're straight coffee isn't my thing.  So I didn't think Seattle's Best could be any worse.  I've made it a couple of times and have come to believe otherwise.  So this morning at 4am, when the only kind of coffee bean in the house was Seattle's Best, I was pleasantly surprised to realize it was much better than I remembered it.

Of course, that could have just been the lack of sleep talking.  Regardless, I was able to grind through a scene in the rewrite I knew wasn't working and figured out how to make it work.  So who knows?  Maybe there's some magic to the Seattle's Best bean after all. 

Otherwise, it was a very pleasant weekend.  We discovered the new Thai place that opened close to us was actually pretty good.  Saturday, we went to see Stardust with Emma's brother and had a good time, although I think I enjoyed the movie slightly more than either Emma or Will.  Finally, last night we went down to Laguna to meet up with Will's girlfriend and her family and have a picnic dinner at sunset.  There were lots of dogs there, which both terrified and fascinated Claire.  

Got up at 4 am this morning.  Actually, a little closer to 4:30.  But I managed to drag my ass out of bed and get some good stuff done.  The best part is I'm not done yet!