Before I get started, I’d like to ask one thing of you. I’m attempting to win a couple books from Jay Lake. There is a caption contest here. If you like my caption, please vote it up. If you don’t, I understand. And Thank you for your support 🙂

A little bit about Jay Lake, he’s got cancer (again) and is going through a rough patch. If you have a little time, check out his site, see if his work interests you,and pick up a book if you’re able.

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This morning I was taking my favorite daughter to school. As I turned the corner to the main road I saw an ambulance way back behind us. I joked that I’m going to outrun the ambulance and make the turn to school. Being that it was so far behind this, it wasn’t something that would be difficult but I wasn’t trying to do anything stupid. I made the turn to the road her school is on and joked again that we beat it! Then we were stuck at the end of a very long line of cars. I saw the ambulance turn the corner and promptly got to the side of the road and the entire line followed suit. Color me impressed.

People dropping their kids off at her school can sometimes be…frustrating. With unsignaled turns, illegal u-turns, kids jaywalking, people pulling out without looking, drastic stops and starts, it’s an accident just waiting to happen. My first thought was that I hoped no one had gotten hurt.

As we got closer to the school, they were waving people away from the first drop off point, Freshman Circle. I only ever went in there once and it was so difficult to get back out that I vowed never to try that again. My Favorite Daughter made it to school on time, but I spent the better part of the morning trying to get back out. Looking into the circle we could see a firetruck and the ambulance. Then I saw the car.

*Note: We were stopped. I do my best to keep traffic flowing and not rubber neck.

The car had hopped the curb and crashed into one of the many concrete barricades. The car was in bad shape. The concrete looked unconcerned. All I could think at that point was “I hope everyone is alright.” Well, that and “How’d they managed do do THAT?”

Freshman circle isn’t that big. There are usually a lot of other cars, buses, foot traffic. So get enough speed to do that much damage couldn’t have been easy. My guess is that will be the talk of the school this morning. I’ll post an update tomorrow once I know what happened. Again, my hope is that no one was seriously injured.

On the Writing Front: I got 1500 words knocked out yesterday. I hope to have a repeat performance again today. There are many things to do so it may or may not happen. We will just have to wait and see how it goes. I’m getting to the really exciting parts of Of Gnomes and Dwarves so the writing should start to go faster. I don’t want to rush it and skip over details. I did a little editing last night as I was going due to the fact that I had to go back and check some facts and better understand what I had laid out.

I’m starting to plot out V&A Shipping II. Yes, I’m finally going to write the sequel. I already have the first line in my head and I’ll re-write this when I start NaNoWriMo: “Kid, it’s kind of hard to lose a planet.” At least that what I think I want the first line to be. Just like with the first V&A Shipping, we’re dumped right into the action. It’ll be another roller coaster ride and I’m going to have a lot of fun in November revisiting Vic, Argman, Joey, June, and Dexter. I’ll, of course, have to add a new android and some other new shipmates. I have plans, I have characters in mind, and I know you’ve waited far too long for a follow-up book. I don’t know, at this time, if I’ll be podcasting it. I don’t know if B.T. Justice and Junior will return, but I’m certain they’ll play a role in there somewhere. Like I said, still in the plotting stages at this point.

The first book was a mash up of Smokey and the Bandit and Star Wars (an intergalatic beer run) but book II will not be like Smokey and the Bandit II. Hopefully my sequel will have a little more substance. Again, we’ll just have to wait and see. No matter what happens, it’ll be fun. Trust me on that one.

Okay, before I can do any of that, I need to get through the work day.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!