I write on a night of celebration! First, another milestone: this is our 200th post on this blog. I extend heartfelt thanks to all those who have marched with me on this journey — and onward we go, by grace!
Second, at a few minutes before 9:00 p.m. tonight, August 22, 2013, I finished the first draft of Signs and Shadows, which I began on April 22, 2010 in Niigata, Japan, when the book was called The House of the Worm. How well I remember that day! I took a small Moleskine notebook and sat in the McDonald’s at the Dekky shopping center, jotting down ideas for the book inspired by my visit to the Winchester Mystery House. (You can read my entry on that intriguing place in San Jose here.)
Working outdoors on the back porch, I wrote 3,231 words today, bringing the book’s raw word count to 159,192. I wrote the last stretch this evening with lightning flashing, thunder growling, and rain falling beyond the shelter of the roof — elementally appropriate! Today was the fifth-most productive day (considering only words written) in the history of this book. I am deeply grateful to God and to (and for) my wonderfully supportive wife — who cooked for us both today, who always celebrates progress with me, and who posted the fact of the draft’s completion on Facebook almost the moment I finished it! (And I’d like to thank my AlphaSmart Neo, too — what a faithful and fantastic machine!)
Some tweaking will be required, of course, to smooth the tangles and iron out the continuity errors. And I’m sure there are too many words. But editing, generally speaking, is fun. It’s a great day — glory to God!
In the odds and ends category . . . (You can decide whether this is an odd or an end.) Not long ago, Morwenna was telling me that in The Phantom Tollbooth, mention is made of edible punctuation marks. As is usually the case, I haven’t read the book (though I’ve heard great things about it many times), and I didn’t rush off to find a copy and start reading (though I would, in a perfect world). What I did was to start imagining what I’d do with that idea if I were writing about it. Here are some sentences I came up with. And my apologies to the author who first thought up the idea of edible punctuation, especially if I’ve inadvertently stolen any material. (Thanks, Morwenna, for starting the conversation!)
You have to imagine that characters are sitting around eating edible punctuation marks, which I suppose would have varying degrees of saltiness and spice. A period, for example, would taste about like a regular cracker; an exclamation point would be either red-hot or garlicky, depending on its proximity to the equator.
1. Jonathan, munching on a comma, paused slightly before continuing his narrative.
2. Having devoured three points of ellipsis with great relish, Catherine let her words trail off, and she appeared to be lost in thought.
3. Popping an ampersand into his mouth, Robert leaned close to his companions, enjoying the company.
4. Amelia crunched on the sugary colon and looked intently from face to face until she had everyone’s attention for what she was about to disclose.
5. Speaking through his mouthful of parentheses, Edwin delivered one of his oblique anecdotes that added nothing to the main thrust of his thesis.
That’s all for now. Did you see the full moon on Tuesday night? It was a blue moon — our second full moon this month. And it was visible coming and going: big and orange low in the east at dusk, still brightly shining in the west as dawn approached. (It’s a fair guess it was visible most of the while between those times, too.)
This is still summer! Let’s live accordingly!
Shieldmaiden says: 
Scott 
Marquee Movies 
Jedibabe 
fsdthreshold 
Daylily 
Morwenna 
Hagiograph