I’m working my way through one of the missing scenes from my revision. One of the ones I thought was going to work fairly well the way it was, until I realized the character doing all the talking is someone I killed half a dozen chapters back. Oopsie.

In a weird way, I’ve exchanged the dread of straight-up revision for the dread of replacing all those little tk(something) marks that stand in for names and for words that I haven’t made up or stolen, yet. They’re mostly words for relationships that don’t tend to exist in English-speaking cultures. Or… you know… Earth. Okay. Yes, I know you have to eventually come up with a word for the five drones who fed themselves to your growing larvae. Yes. It would be uncivilized not to recognize that.

I would like a book deal, please.

And a movie deal.

And an invitation to watch the Foley Artists make larvae eating drones type-noises for the soundtrack. (I promise to stay out of the way.)

I’m a little less decided in my personal life. A better job, of course. Better hours. Maybe something that doesn’t get me out of bed at 2:30 in the morning. Something where I can actually go to an evening event and still wind up in work the next day.

Something that uses my degree.

Something that uses my brain.

Hell, something I like.

More interaction with other active creatives. People. Small towns are great, but if you say “I’m writing a novel…” Well, it’s been a long, long time since anybody’s responded with “me, too,” and actually meant it.

And some kind of a hobby that’s just a hobby. I hear people still do that, from time to time. There’s one of those problems with turning writing into a goal. It stops being recreation. (And now, I’m back to the small-towns thing. And the work schedule thing. And this is beginning to look like a loop.)

I would like a portable job, actually. I don’t mean long-haul trucking or something like that, where I absolutely must be in Dallas at 8:00 or I’m dead. I mean a genuinely portable, can be done from anywhere job. Income that goes with me when I decide I want to see the northern lights or Buenos Aires. Income that does not care whether I wake up at 2 in the morning or 4 in the afternoon.

And then, I’ll probably become a nomad.