Spring has Sprung... Happy Friday!

Here in the South, spring is creeping over the hills and edging into your peripheral vision. Everywhere you look something new is blooming. The Bradford Pear trees are a few days away from becoming their annual spring puffballs. A light, playful breeze has taken up residence during the days, while the nights have become warm and filled with cricket and frog duets. Flowers are peeking up through the soil, fruit stands are making themselves ready for the next few months of craziness, and everything in my town smells new and green and faintly fabulous.

That is, of course, if you can smell... My allergies have brought on some sort of ailment, so I've spent the last couple days of this beautiful transition in bed. I'm not sure if it's allergies or a cold or a sinus infection or what, but the result's the same... clogged sinuses, aches, sneezing, coughing, and a wish for death when bright light hits my eyes... Phew. I'm sure it'll pass soon, but this really blows.

However, I've been using the time to my advantage. I haven't stopped posting on the blog (as you can see, heh) and I've been writing and writing and writing and writing and... yeah. Last night I hit 70,000 words and 240 pages. I wrote for hours in kind of a drug-induced, dreamlike state. I'm not even sure what exactly happened in the pages I wrote, now that I think about it... I mean, I could give you the general gist of it, but the actual passages escape me. That's the best kind of writing for me... when I'm so deep in the Zone, going back over pages produced becomes kind of a fun surprise. The book is steadily marching along to its climax, and all I can do is hang on for the ride, ailment or no ailment.

I'm also kind of excited about the fact that I now have three short stories rolling around in my head, waiting to be born. I'm not thinking about them too much while I'm finishing the novel - I feel like I only have enough headspace for one project at a time at this late stage in the game. But it's exciting and encouraging to know I have other things I can work on when this is done. I plan on working on the shorts when I set the completed MS of the novel aside for a few weeks (I've heard this is a good practice; once the book's completed you must let it rest for a bit). That should help me keep out of the MS and really let it rest as it needs to.

Now the weekend's here, so I'm going to concentrate on resting and let myself kick whatever this is out of my system. Writers' meeting is tomorrow morning, and I'm excited about it. I can't wait to hear what my group thinks of the new pages. And I'm so excited to read new stuff from them as well. Gail has been working on a wonderful new novel, Fireworks: Interference Equation and I'm hooked. I can't wait for the next installment.

Hope everyone out there in the blog-o-sphere has a great weekend and enjoys the new spring weather! Take care, all.