Everything's coming up roses

Just a quick post to say that I started my first-person rewrite of BoMH part III on Monday night and I'm incredibly excited about it!  It's totally turned around how I feel about the book: there's always been a claustrophobic hothouse-type aspect to the story that I have disliked, and this opens things up in a funny and interesting way that I am very much enjoying.  Haven't been so interested and engaged by something I was writing since a day I stole in February to reimmerse myself in a piece I wrote a while ago about the 'minute particular' in life-writing and the novel.  (It's one of my projects for August to get that out as a real article.)

I was unusually frenzied in my work life from December through May, and then in the aftermath of that I was uncharacteristically grumpy from May pretty much right up until now.  I'm hoping this marks a real turning point. 

I had one of those days yesterday where everything just seems to go right (clearly this follows in the psychological aftermath of  near-magical Monday-night and Tuesday-morning writing sessions).  I walked down a block I don't usually traverse and found myself in the amazing surrounds of the flower market, which is really like something out of a fairy story; I had an amazing lunch (best conversation ever!) with my editor at the hyper-palindromic Ilili (the space is beautiful and the food is very good; I recommend the prix fixe lunch - we shared grape leaves and hummus for appetizers, then I had the grilled chicken salad and the "Ilili candy bar" for dessert); I generally avoid crosstown buses, as they are often slower than walking, but heat changes the equation and the M23 - I had known this but somehow forgot it - actually goes all the way to Chelsea Piers; I had an enjoyable run workout on the indoor track at Chelsea Piers followed by a dip in the pool; then I took the M23 again to the first meeting of a mindfulness-based stress reduction class I found online and that seems exactly what I've been looking for.

Age-banded

Colleen Mondor was kind enough to send me some very thought-provoking questions last week, and has now posted the full interview at Chasing Ray. I will not excerpt it, but I was especially tickled by the final question, because she is the first person to have asked me about a possible allusion to something that was indeed very important to me while I was writing The Explosionist. I think she meant the question as an off-the-record afterthought, but I begged her to keep it in!