July...

It's such a wonderful month... The sun is shining, it tend's to get hot as hell (let's not forget the humidity), and it's right in the middle of the break between academic semesters.

Le Tour is in full swing... and with one week down, Lance is in 3rd place (8 seconds behind the leader, and 2 seconds behind 2nd place)... Two more days until their first rest day, and two weeks left overall. The only reason I would want to have Versus, and it's not enough to justify the bump in the cable bill...

Speaking of "academic", I'm still in the process of planning/writing the novel, trying to get some breathing room for the class for this Fall. The plan is currently:[ideal] have the first draft of the "short novel" somewhere between 75% to 100% finished; [plan B] be somewhere between 25k-30k words written, then finish and start revising during the semester. My concerns here are three: I've not written anything much longer than 15k-20K words in a single work before. I've not completed/gotten past the 10k-15k word mark in the various NaNo Projects I've attempted. Lump all of my creative output together [outside of journaling and blog posts], and it might be somewhere around the 100k word mark -150k words might be a stretch (but I do have several snippets that have been hand-written, and not typed yet)... So the short version: based on my history, I'm a little nervous about how I'll do in the class (but it's a great opportunity to put my butt in the fire - and when I pull it off at the end of the semester, I'll have a better sense of confidence to work with some of my other projects - as well as better understanding of how I may work through things...)

Which I can carry to other options... even if I do end up having to come up with something from one of the other story ideas during the semester, if I can set myself up with a good position somewhere between the Ideal and Plan B onthe current project, not only will I be that much further on this particular project (and can continue throughout the semester, using some of the ideas and insights to tweak the text), but will [conceptually] make it easier to get to/through the next project.*

I've got a few thoughts on the post-MA options, but am trying to wait until classes resume to discuss with a few of the instructors... but I'm leaning towards either going for the PhD, or talking with MC about some opportunities that she's been looking at, possibly overseas, which would mean I would be focusing on the writing. Ask me again in ten minutes, and you might get another answer... with two years to go until I'm done, odds are things will tak a little time to get figured out...

*The illusion here, is that "do it once, and you can do it just the same, over and over" - kind of like the idea of muscle memory when practicing a jump shot. While the concept is sound (ie - removes the basic excuses... if you've done it before, you can do it again), each creative project will have its own unique challenges. Solve one puzzle, the next puzzle may be similar, but have different color or pattern issues that may allow an easier time solving it, or something that may take twice as long to finish. While I firmly believe and recognize the individualtiy of each project, I think there's something to be said about breaking through the wall, in terms of simply establishing the "Oh, yeah, I CAN actually do this."