Friday, September 30, 2005

Well. This was not the best of days.

I don’t want to get into specific details for a variety of reasons. I think I can get away with this much: I got an emotional voicemail last night about Otherspace, and when I tried to return the call today, the person who called didn’t answer the phone. So I spent the day in a state of anxious anticipation, and now I know I won’t get back in touch with this person until at least Monday. Arg.

And indeed, I woke up feeling poorly this morning, so I called in sick to work. Rather, e-mailed in sick. (Technology is amazing.) And because I was trying to return this phone call, I spent the day mostly in nervous anticipation, getting little done.

I did manager to draw a couple of heads (as practice for my upcoming comic) and write about five hundred words of outline for my young adult novel. I haven’t been able to figure out exactly what to write or where to start, so I figured I’d write a detailed outline and see where that takes me. A successful local writer writes outlines that are about forty percent as long as the finished novel, she says. Personally, when I have written to an outline, I’ve been able to write more easily and more directly. It’s just not as much fun as picking up a plot thread and following it to see where it’ll take me. But if this gets the book written, I’ll do it.

I also watched the first disc of Koi Kaze, a recent anime romantic drama about a thirty-year-old man who sort of falls in love with his fifteen-year-old younger sister. Which sounds either like a wacky comedy or a dreadful quasi-porn title; it’s decidedly neither. He’s very emotionally closed off, and she’s just moved in after their parents divorced ten years ago. She idolizes her older brother, and she causes him to actually feel his emotions. So when he starts having feelings for her, he’s even more conflicted than he would be otherwise. He feels terrible about what he’s feeling, but then, he’s feeling. Good but bad. And all presented with the utmost delicacy and respect for the subject matter. Highly recommended, if you like a series with no sweatdrops or giant robots.

Oh, and there’s more VR story. I’m getting fairly close to the end. We’re within a few thousand words, I think.