Whoof.

I treated myself to some really strong and delicious coffee tonight, courtesy of my french press and Star Market for the bottled water and the "Distant Lands" brand coffee from the crunchy section of their store. Then I set to writing. The two kinds of stimulation (externally-injected chemicals and internally-inspired... uh, chemicals) resulted in my finishing the rough draft of the small chapter I set out to write, and the fact that it's 4 a.m. and I'm just starting to get tired now. I can't believe it's Th-- it's Friday. Yeezums. I feel good now, but I'm supposed to have so much more done my Monday. O mi papa. We'll see.

I was feeling a little bad earlier because I vented a little, just a little, to my editor in email today. Nothing very harsh; the sort of stuff I post here about the book, really. He had asked me how I was coming along for Monday, and I basically said I'd have a lot, and I'd hate it and feel terrible about it, all the while rubbing my hands together in anticipation of really getting to work, now that I had a whole manuscript to start monkeying around with. This was my experience with P&X -- once a complete draft existed, even though it was filled with holes and PUT OUTPUT HERE and THIS IS A HORRIBLE SECTION TITLE AUGH and the word "ass" a couple times too many and so on, being able to spend a few weeks marking up a complete paper copy and smoothing it all out not only made the book better, but it showed me that, hey -- it was actually a pretty good book. So, I'm looking forward to giving the same treatment to Macnut.

It's strange to think I haven't even read Macnut yet, but it's true. First of all, it's such a densely cross-referenced book, I by definition haven't really read it until everything's in place, and all pointers have something to point to. Second of all, I've been too farging busy pressing ahead and creating new content to have the chance to really sit down and go over what I've done so far. Wheeee. So. Yes, I can't wait to read it and cringe and cry and then make it gorgeous.

But anyway, yes: I grumbled the essence of all this to Chuck and then I felt kind of bad because he's right there with me in all this, arguably deeper than me because he's the poor sap gotta take all the heat for me being such a slowpoke. Hmm. Well... Monday's coming up soon, one way or another, and I'll definitely be talking with him then.

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I cheer myself up to see that I actually am capable of thinking about life after the book. (And here the chorus says "That's what you said last time." I know, it's awful. Here's a road I shan't follow twice.) A story on Slashdot about pie menus in Mozilla reminded me of one particular aspect of MIGS, my modular Internet game system, as it stood the last time I really thought about it... last January sometime. I was really into pie menus, having never seen them before The Sims but very impressed at what I saw there, and had started messing around with implementing them in SVG, which I had decided would be MIGS' graphics format. Mm... just thinking about it makes me all tingly.

I can't wait until I can start creating for myself again. You have... you have no idea.