I watched the new TV show Century City the other night. Basic premise: L.A. Law, 2030 A.D. The first episode dealt with cloning (and a subplot involving anti-aging medication), and it dealt pretty well with some complex moral issues. I’ve decided to give the show a chance.

Of course, that’s probably the kiss of death for it…

I got this picture off some aerial photo web site a while back, and forgot to post it. The homeowners association is throwing a fit because someone painted that big arrow and those letters across the parking lot…

Just finished “The First Ambassador.” Originally aiming for about 3000-4000 words, I ended up with 7775. Maybe I should add a couple to get it up to 7777.

Of course, I still have some editing to do on it.

And, since it is now after midnight, a big “Happy Birthday” to my little nephew David, who is one year old today. And a “Happy Birthday” to his Uncle Eric, too, who is a whole lot older than that.

I’ve been pretty busy recently working on a short story called “The First Ambassador.” I have over 5000 words now; it’ll probably end up somewhere around 7000, so I should finish it in plenty of time for the March 31 Writers of the Future deadline.

Because I’ve been working on this story, I haven’t been working on other minor bits of writing like those that I post here. But I have been sticking to my goal of at least 13 lines per day.

One of the other students in my creative writing class is a romance author. She wrote a scene in which the two main characters, who knew each other as children, meet again as adults. The scene involved the woman recalling how the man had repeatedly teased her and hurt her feelings years ago, and finally that resentment showed itself in the present, to the surprise of the man.

This was written a few days ago, and I just haven’t gotten around to posting it until now.

One-Eye-That-Sees-Prey-From-Afar-and-Falls-Upon-It-as-Death-From-the-Blue could smell the man that had entered his cave. There was something troubling about the scent, though, something that tugged at his memory.

There was only the one scent. A foolish man, to come alone into One-Eye’s cave. Foolish or not, they tasted the same.
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As I was driving home today, I saw a sign for the musical that Lehi High School is putting on later this month: Footloose.

I think that’s so funny.

(For those who don’t know, some of the movie Footloose was filmed in Lehi. The place where Kevin Bacon‘s character worked was Lehi Roller Mills, a flour mill that is right next to Lehi High School.)

I’ve been eating some burritos that are, according to the package, “Spicy Taco Picante” flavor.

Which is good, because I hate the mild taco picante flavor.

Now if I could just find some apple pie de manzana for dessert…

This was meant to be the beginning of a story I want to write, but it’s the wrong tone. So this is the beginning of another story, that I don’t have any real ideas about yet.

Lance Melton’s eleventh-grade painting teacher was the first to report his potentially unhealthy obsession with science. “All he wants to paint are stars and big bunches of stars,” he wrote in a memo that was added to Lance’s permanent record. An inquiry from a school counselor to Lance’s other teachers revealed more evidence: his sculpture teacher said he had made a moving model of the solar system which, though technically competent, lacked creativity; his creative writing teacher complained that his assignments were entirely science fiction; his poetry teacher had noticed a stellar motif in his poetry

I mailed off a submission to Analog today, a short (< 1000 words) story of a rather frivolous nature that I hope might be suitable for their Probablility Zero feature. It’s called “Digest of Selected Portions of the Abbreviated Summary of the Condensed Report of the Ad Hoc Investigatory Subcommittee of the Select Committee for the Thorough Examination of Unusual-But-Widely-Publicized Events in Interclusteral Space of the Middle Senate of the Upper House of the Parliamentary Congress of the United Federal Union of Confederated Galactic Clusters.”

Yes, they pay by the word, but no, I don’t think that includes the title.