"Your worst nitemair" (zedd108@lycos.com) writes to offer these pearls of Christian compassion:

You are a fool with absolutly no morals or truth in you you are a wolf in sheeps clothing you have broken covents made to god and his angles and for this you shell be damed i here by place a curse upone your head. Your life is about to fall down around you. Death is in the air and you will die a most painfull death. There is no hope for you and your soul. You speak forth lies. Aperintly you know nothing of acrology they have backed all teh b.o.m.s claims. You also are a fool to leave the truth. I fear for your soul!

A week later than I'd hoped, but yesterday I finished the third draft of Silvertide, at long last. Then I promptly went out with my wife and celebrated with raucous partying at the annual SFWA Authors & Editors Reception in Manhattan.

This afternoon the manuscript went in the mail to my agent.

Okay, so today is Veterans' Day, and since my company's home office is in Washington, D.C., and they follow the government holiday schedule, I'm off work today.

So I'm here at home making what I hope is the final heroic push to finish the third draft of my novel Silvertide. So will you please stop distracting me and let me get back to work?!

My new story "Strong Medicine" went online at Salon yesterday! I would have said something sooner, but it was so fast that it took even me by surprise. Read it here:

Strong Medicine

Hope you'll drop by Salon and give the story a look. You've got to check out the cool illustration, if nothing else.

At the office earlier than usual this morning, I ordered some breakfast from the usual diner. An omelet with sausage, tomato, and cheddar cheese; whole wheat toast on the side, buttered; large coffee, half-and-half light.

My order just arrived. It's a scrambled-egg sandwich on whole wheat toast, neatly layered with sliced sausage links, tomato, and cheddar cheese.

But hey, they buttered the toast like I asked.

Just moments ago got word from Salon that they're taking another short story from me. This one's pretty short, only 2,000 words, and it's another one of these somewhat recent revisions of older trunk material. This time, though, I didn't think of Salon right off. I sent this to a couple of other places before I realized it might work there. Don't know yet when it will appear, or under what title (mine is "Strong Medicine"), but I will of course keep you posted.

Damn, this is turning out to be a good year, fictionwise. I'm feeling almost like a real writer.