Today I added 1,956 words to The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster; and, unlike yesterday, these words were entirely original words.  I’ve been working on a new scene for Hank, bringing in some more characterization and fleshing out the bad guys some more, and adding a couple of new minor characters.  I actually want to write some more, but I feel like I’m tapped dry for the day.  Nearly 2,000 words is a pretty respectable output for one day, I think.

In other news, we finally solved the lawn circle mystery once and for all by tapping a resource which we had never thought to consult: our neighbors.  It turns out that our house’s previous owner had indeed put an above-ground pool in the back yard.  He also apparently owned a cement mixer which he was pretty fond of (this explains a couple of other mysteries: why there are drip hoses partially buried in cement throughout the yard and the strangely shaped garden beds near the back of the yard).  So when he put in the pool, he decided to also lay a circular foundation for it.  When he eventually removed the pool, he left the circular foundation in, and lay soil and sod over it.   Our lawn circle represents that very foundation.  So points go to my sister’s boyfriend, who originally suggested that underground masonry or something was responsible for the lawn circle.

Yesterday we put a pet door in the door to the laundry room, which is where we keep the cats’ litter boxes.  This has improved things tremendously in our house, though a couple of the cats were confused by the whole thing.  Tangerine took to it instantly, of course, and figured it out right away.  Azzie, on the other hand, who still gets lost in the bathtub, had to be physically shoved through it both ways before he realized he could actually go through it on his own.

Finally, it’s just after eleven o’clock at night, which means I should get to sleep, I suppose.  Personally, I hate sleep.  There are a lot of books I could read, a lot of writing I could do, a lot of movies that I could see if only my body didn’t insist on shutting down for six to eight hours every night.  I tend to stay up really late, like 1 or 2 in the morning, which means I’m utterly useless in the morning.  The only good thing I get out of sleep is a few rather vivid dreams, which can occasionally lend some neat imagery to my writing.  I know that there are drugs out there (experimental, mostly) which I could take that could reduce the amount of sleep my body needs, but that just seems wrong.  But my doctor informs me that regular sleep will help with my weight loss and depression and a host of other issues, so I suppose I’d better give it a whirl.

So, uh, good night, I suppose.

Originally published at Richard Crawford's World. You can comment here or there.