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"And what did you dream about last night, Sam?"

"Three words for you: ROOMBA RESCUE MISSION."

Honestly, herding roombas is the hardest things ever.

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Well. I'm going to the Minnesota State Fair in September.

Yee-haw!

I love state fairs. It's not something I was raised with or any part of the worlds I move in, except peripherally when I'm with Lucky's family. I've only been to one or two before now, and not in years. Lucky's going to take me to see livestock judging and Mum's very excited about the arts and crafts and I hear they'll fry anything at a state fair.

The real reason we're going is that Mum wants to see Garrison Keillor perform live just once, so we have tickets to that on Friday night. I'll see if I can get Garrison Keillor to give a shout out to the Cafe during his Greetings segment.

Apropos of nothing, I just booked a "Pandemic Preparation Meeting" in one of our conference rooms. Although I'm glad we're on top of Pandemic Preparation, it's also a trifle eerie.

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I gave myself a break on writing for the last few days, because Mum was in town and even if I'd had the time I'd have been a bit scattered. I'm trying to get back to it now but really struggling with the new story, and not for the usual reasons. I'm doing okay, at least I think, with the themes; I know where the plot is going, and I'm fairly sure how to get there.

What I'm having the most difficulty with is the fact that I'm writing science fiction. I feel silly, and a bit like Terry Pratchett is laughing at me. I know that in itself is ridiculous; science fiction is no less a "real" or vital genre than litfic, but I am discovering that I am still the ten-year-old who put a paper cover on his copy of Ender's Game so the other kids wouldn't mock it for having spaceships on the cover (as opposed to now, when I'd do it because Orson Scott Card is a prick).

I open the file to work on Valet of Anize and I get the urge to run back to Low Ferry and curl up inside the sequel to Nameless that's knocking around in my head.

This is a good story to work on and I think I can give it the same literary value that Nameless had but it's a whole new set of problems. Fear that people will nitpick my worldbuilding skills for not being detailed enough, fear that the detail I have is getting lost, fear that my protagonist is too sparkly, fear that I can't actually write a space opera that's as meaningful as the small-town folk ballad that Nameless was.

It's just so stupid, being insecure about writing something because of its genre. Which in some ways means this is the right step, a step out of my comfort zone, but that doesn't make it easy.

I think I just need to really embrace the pulp golden age scifi thing and pretend I'm Arthur C. Clarke or something, except minus the rampant sexism. All the modernist scifi lit was so...excited about the future and enthusiastic that humanity was reaching for the stars and totally unconscious of how silly some of its ideas were. I grew up in a postmodern era where we make fun of those old phallic rockets and nobody's been to the moon in my lifetime and we had to reboot Star Trek and Han didn't even shoot first anymore. I can't read Arthur C. Clarke without noticing that the female protagonist of Rendezvous With Rama is introduced to us via her breasts. But they also wrote without this weird genre shame that comes from forty years of stereotypes applied to The Science Fiction Writer Nerd, even within fandom.

I'm in the Spaceship Closet.

Perplexing and difficult. Still, one soldiers on.

I get to meet Dr. Anizin soon. She's basically Jack Baker with electricity. Should be fun...

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I THOUGHT I WAS FREE.

Last night my physical therapist said "Congratulations, you've graduated!" which means no more PT -- kind of sad-making actually, I had fun with them, but also a relief because it meant two more nights a week were once again my own. I was looking forward to going home early tonight and getting some real work done.

And then my phone buzzed to remind me that I have a chiropractor's appointment.

Not that I don't love my chiropractor, but someday I'd like to leave work and actually go home.

Also, my lunch was insufficient. BABY CARROTS AND SALT AND PEPPER CHIPS DO NOT A MEAL MAKE.

It might be sushi night tonight. YES IT MIGHT.

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It turns out, if you work out late on the Wii Fit one night, the next day the virtual trainer punishes you by oversharing about how he was out late last night. Just like a real trainer!

I think I also pulled something during "Rhythm Boxing". Apparently I do not know how to punch. I'm aces at getting punched*, if they had a "get punched" workout I'd be a master.

I HAVE mastered the "sit very still on the Wii board" game. I sit still like any old thing. Like a Bodhidharma!

SUSHI NOW.

* In the face, so you can show off the black eye the next day. This occurred during my bartender stint in college, after I offered to pour a new drink for a woman whose date tried to roofie her.

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So, then I wrote two thousand words. JOB WELL DONE CAFE, you nursed me right through that neurotic moment.

I was going to share a bit with you, just for fun, but I realised none of what I've written so far is funny (which is a whole different neurosis) and most of it is...oddly spoilery. But hopefully I will have the first two chapters to post pretty soon.

I meant to say more here but I got nothing. I'm writered out. GOODNIGHT, INTERNET!