I've just finished _To Say Nothing of the Dog_ and _Doomsday Book_ which were both amazingly good reads. Even if I did finish them in three days. Now I'm working my way through _In the Company of Others_ which I've been waiting to be published for some time. I've avoided reading the Snippets on Julie's web site, so that the book wouldn't be spoiled.

One of the really cool things about this book is that Julie printed me a copy of the prologue from the first draft. It was a prize I won on her newsgroup. So I read through the prologue in the book and compared. There was an added paragraph, but nothing else that was new. But it was fascinating to see the change. It's like having a chance to watch her in action.

Writing and Editing is such a strange process. Not that I'm remotely professional, by any stretch of the imagination. Unless you count a couple of academic articles floating in my head for eventual publication. But fiction?

I can run roleplaying games, I'm a decent enough fanficker, but true out and out fiction, I just don't have the stories. I don't have ideas.

I used to, when I was very little. And now those ideas are just gone. It's like I turned off that part of my brain, and I can only write in other people's worlds.

That's just sooooo depressing.