Weasel Boy is going well. 4k yesterday, and a lot of it usable. There will be dead weight in the rough draft, sure, but I want it well underway by the time I go back to the YA.

This is in many respects my favorite part of working, the creative burst that precedes a lot of revision. I had been having dark, dismal thoughts that the creative burst was in my past, that I couldn’t get up that head of steam anymore, etc., etc., shake that Internal Censor until s/he howls. But I’ve discovered that wasn’t the case. I was just resting, the ground kind of fallow and my usual speed slowed to a crawl. The creative life is somewhat of a bicycle ride, because one has to balance carefully and watch for danger and look at the bloody scenery. When one has to juggle on top of riding the cycle, speed necessarily slows–and this ain’t no Tour de France, it’s okay to sniff some roses and kiss some pretty boys along the way.

Or girls. Or tentacled monsters, if one prefers Cthulu.

On the book front, I’ve finished Wages of Destruction. It was a fun read, very dense, and I don’t understand half of what I should about statistics etc. but the author made it reasonably clear in context. I haven’t read any other studies of the German economy during the interwar and WWII period, so I’ll have to take the cover blurbs’ word that this is a revolutionary study. It did inform several other books I’ve read in odd ways–like Alan Clark’s Barbarossa and Beevor’s great study of Stalingrad. Now I’m hoping Tooze looks at the Russian economy in the same period. I’d read that book.

So…what I’m reading now: The Guns of August, Ivan’s War (thanks to all the Readers who suggested those) and, to leaven everything, The Beasts of Tarzan. I like Burroughs, actually. It’s pulp, but it’s reasonably good pulp and I know what I’m getting with every mighty-thewed chapter. Srsly, I haven’t read this many thews since the Iliad.

I have this regrettable fondness for Tarzan, mostly because of Travis Fimmel. I wish the WB would release that series on DVD. Hey. Quit laughing. I loved that show. It was awesome.

I am tossing around the idea of a historical Watcher series. It would mean a lot of research, but it would probably be fun. Of course, since I’m booked for the next couple of years it’s going to take a while and might never come to fruition…but it’s nice to think about these things, you know.

Happy Tuesday, all. And now, back to the salt mines–and I’m cooking Fifteen-Bean Soup and rye bread today. Let’s hope it works out as well as some of the writing is…

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