opening

s-words is for the public. This will be my daily journal, something to write in regardless of whether I have something to say, or at least say publically. A good habit. I've tried daily diarizing in the past, and it hasn't gone very far; let's hope that with the momentum of smashwords and the kind of distancing that's part of this medium I keep keep it up . While I'm at this, let's start with some ground rules: 1) Give this at least 20 continuous minutes a day, as long as I'm not writing something for smashwords. 2) Even when I am writing for smashwords, put in a least 10 minutes here at a sitting, if only to note what's happening in the other blog and the issues and decisions involved. 3) No restrictions on content or censorship of style, but try to avoid snarky rants -- let's save those for smashwords, assuming they're interesting enough.

Happy days, the color I've chosen for the lower molding in my bedroom seems to work with the yellow in the upper panel. Little victories. I look forward to showing it off to F. and B., and shocking the eyes out of any woman I bring up here. Once this is finished I have to go back and give the little test length a second coat; once that dries and I strip of the masking tape, I'll know whether I can start on the rest of the room. If it works as well as I hope, the painting will be done before dinner.

Tonight I really need to start giving Don's manuscript a read. Maybe just as well I commit myself to another discipline of writing before I see what he's managed to accomplish. Tonight and tomorrow should be enough to close read and mark up a couple of chapters and do a glance over of the whole. I didn't promise him any more than that, though the longer I wait the more the expectations will be. I'll call him Tuesday or Wednesday and we can arrange to talk whenever he gets around to it, which may not be for some time if his slowness in sending me the manuscript in the first place is any example. I'll probably xerox the marked up chapters and send them to him first.

I wonder whether I should just write or correct as I go? This last sentence for example was originally "I wonder whether I should just write as I go or..." and then I went back and put it into it's present form. Of course I also reflexively correct words as I go, e.g. in this sentence "reflexively", which I started writing "reflect..." I'm going to try making it a rule that I don't correct anything outside of the sentence that's currently under construction. However, this doesn't prevent me from rereading what I've written early, to make sure the flow of the logic makes sense, or at least that I can catch myself before going too far astray.

I'm itching to get back to painting, but it's been only 19 minutes so let me launch just one more paragraph. I wonder if and when I should give F. a call this afternoon. Probalby around 3:30. Should I offer to help again editing B.'s paper? Or know that they'll ask if I need it? What I will do is just ask F. how it's going, since obviouisly this can't be avoided and if she needs an opportunity to rail at me or be sarcastci so be it. Quite deserved under the circumstances. By the way I've already violated the letter of my rule here by correcting a typo two sentences back, but that's a reasonable exception, at least if the typo compromises comprehensibility (unlike e.g. "sarcastci" above).