1. Most of what’s been on my mind lately has been personal stuff that I don’t particularly feel like sharing over the interwebs. Plus I’ve been generally just tired lately, so it’ll probably be a thin one this time.

2. Doing a lot of outlining lately. In fact I’m starting to think I’ve been writing entirely the wrong way for all these years: outlining is a great way to get a handle on what you’re trying to write. And it’s a heck of a lot less demanding, making it easier to pick up and just do some work and feel like you’ve done something. Plus you can get a lot of different works outlined, have them in the back file, and then take them out and make them something. Simply knowing what you’re trying to write ahead of time makes the whole writing process a hundred times easier.

3. Drawing quotes recently, I found this one from The Man Who Was Thursday: I had vaguely remembered it, but had forgotten just how darn fitting it is to the current climate:

He was one of those who are driven early in life into too conservative an attitude by the bewildering folly of most revolutionists. He had not attained to it by any tame tradition. His respectability was spontaneous and sudden, a rebellion against rebellion.

I honestly think a lot of people these days are poised for that kind of attitude, if only anyone had the sense to take advantage of it. Present a workable set of traditional principles to set against progressivism, give it a good push and some charismatic voices, and it will become a power in very short order.

4. Heard a suggestion today that Alice Cooper might be a good choice to recruit into politics. I doubt he’d do it, but am entirely in favor of that, and there are comparatively few celebrities I can say that of.

5. To me the great fantasy of a time travel story would be simply the fact of knowing what is going to happen. If you go back in time to, say, 1890, you would at least be proof against uncertainty. Assuming, of course, you did your research ahead of time.