I opened my desk drawer...

...to withdraw a pad of paper, and one of my kids (who had been lurking in the corner, as kids often do) said, "What's this!" and before I could stop her had withdrawn my Saiyuki Reload tank from my desk.

She'd never heard of Saiyuki before (and had trouble reading the kanji) but when she caught sight of the back cover (Sanzou), her first words were "Oh man, why can't men like this exist in real life?" We then spent the next 15 minutes or so commiserating about how glorious it would be if the world were filled with RL Sanzous, and how guns are scary IRL, but pretty sexy in manga.

To which I had to respond, "I know..." On the other hand, if men like Sanzou really did exist, I would be owned. So it's probably for the best that they don't.

It's always a nice surprise...

..when characters you'd long given up on suddenly start talking again. That's what happened to me today when reread bits of a Saiyuki story I'd given up for dead about a year ago. I started writing it about two years ago, give or take, and have thus far spun two completed stories out of it and gutted the middle for a third story, before giving up on it entirely when I could no longer work Minekura's canon into my plot, and it started to seem as if the characters were speaking in my voice instead of their own.

I was reading what I'd written and thinking to myself, shame, because some of this is pretty good. And then I thought, no, dammit, this is solid writing! and then, I can't give this up! So I sat down and starting thinking about it, and all of a sudden, bits and pieces were falling into place as if they'd always been there.

I had quite a bit of free time at work, during which I filled a good portion of my notebook with a continuation of the story. I'm going to sit on it for a day or two and see how I like it, and if it's still as good as I think it is now, I just might try to finish it.

The good news for you, fragilistikal, is that I wrote it out longhand, so you'll have two more days before you receive your revised page count.