This and That Monday

Another Monday morning in blogland. Yesterday was spent on the road; the Catbird went back to school after a nice month home, and I'm finding that, the older I get, the more long drives wear me out. So, this will be one of those days where I'm just meandering around a bit, as opposed to one of those times where I have something coherent to say.

FIRST, writing land business. Agent Carrie is open to submissions for her query critique. If you've got a query, and you're looking for a shot at having an agent critique it (and having an agent potentially review your first hundred pages), go check it out. And if you don't have a query, consider checking back there in a few days or a week, so that you can help the lucky winner--and learn something yourself.

And speaking of Agent Carrie, just as governors have a State of the State address, and presidents do a State of the Union, she and I will be conferring for our annual State of the Partnership Phone Conference. This is a chance to formally discuss what's going on and setting the goals and plans for the coming year into place. For me, on the broadest level, it's "finish  the book, start the next," though I have other thinsg in mind, as well.

While on the subject of writing, I did "finish" my current project last week--huzzah!--but I was alarmed to look at how much the word count has grown. In a few more days, it's back into the grinder with it to see what fluff can come out. Writing a novel can seem to be a never-ending process, can't it?

I caught the last two hours of last night's debate, and found I actually enjoyed it. Three intelligent people who were sticking to debating the issues and not resorting to a series of schoolyard-level insults. Most surprisingly, I felt that the moderators  were rather pro-Sanders in terms of how they ran the debate. They seemed to throw a lot of questions his way, and seemed more willing to defer to him when he asked for a few seconds to respond to something stated by the other candidates during the previous discussion. I feel a bit for Martin O'Malley, who really has to struggle to get his voice heard. Sanders and Clinton are both LOUD and aggressive; O'Malley is kind of a nice balance to that, but he disappeared for long stretches, which is part personality, and part the fault of the moderators.

And, just to finish, tomorrow the Magpie goes back to school as well, so the nest will once again be empty. This is it for her, the final semester of her life as a college student (unless she ultimately opts for graduate school, but that won't be the same). It is truly amazing how fast the time goes, isn't it?

That's all I've got for today; what have YOU got?