By Ymir's eyelashes

Emailed off two agent queries this morning (thanks to Ol' Mike Jasper for the tip!), and will be sending out a query and first 50 by snail later today. Which feels really incredibly good and productive, because that YA novel's just been loafing on my hard drive, not doing anything to advance my career. Get out there, ya lazy bum! Ya gonna spend your whole life watching cartoons and playing Pong?

And I've been thinking Norse stuff. Last night I listened to a BBC radio program in which British academics discussed Norse gods, and from the 45 minutes I gleaned the detail that the wall surrounding Asgard is made from primordial giant Ymir's eyelashes. Somehow I'd missed that in my readings of the Eddas. I think it's neat. Have also had one or two other thoughts about the book. Which is good, of course, but in general, it's not ideas that I necessarily fall short of. It's plot, which is different than ideas, and something that comes much less naturally to me. Learning is hard. But I have faith in my ability to learn. I emailed a subset of my writer friends about my difficulties with the novel, mostly a crisis of spirit and confidence, and they responded with a broad variety of solutions and suggestions -- just as I knew and hoped they would. Mostly what they gave me was faith, and I owe everyone of them a beer, at least. And I ain't talkin' no Gherkinbrau, either.

Alright. I gotta bunch of Flash pieces to develop or storyboard for others to develop. It's for the contract project I'm doing with a group from Cal State San Bernadino, for an online course teaching critical thinking skills. I should get me some of those skills sometime. I bet they're real handy.