I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it. --George Carlin

Gotta love George Carlin. Thanks brainyquote.com!

Some days it ain’t the block that gets ya, it’s the technology. I started editing yesterday, only to have my computer freeze for twelve hours. It just shuts down, goes to a glowing, pre-start screen, and sits there, with the fan running, until I get pissed, unplug it, and let the battery run down. Then I can start it… twelve plus hours later.

Needless to say, I was not a happyhappy Ax.

But I did get a lot edited on paper and some scenes sorted out. Surprisingly, I exed out an entire 2 pages and it felt really good. The rewrite is a lot stronger.

Today started out better. So far (keep your fingers crossed) no big computer issues and I’m not high off cleaning products. I’m the only person I know who gets a contact buzz from Pledge. Throw some toilet bowl cleaner and Lysol in the mix and I’m laughing like an idiot. Not that that is much different than normal… but hey. In all seriousness, I’m just really sensitive to cleaning products, fly repellant, herbicides and pesticides. They spray the corn and I get a sore throat. Get the idea? And since I got into some fly repellant last summer, I’ve been really bad around cleaning products. Not sure of the correlation and its probably all in my head, but that’s nothing new.

Tentatively heading up north tonight to visit friends and (ahem!) picking their brains on farm mechanics. I don’t know a piston from my left shoe, but they do. Hey, some people interview cops or doctors for their novels. Not me. I interview John Deere experts. It’s only a bonus that they happen to be my second family.

A last word on edits: I’d read interviews with bestselling authors who said the editing process was the worst part of writing and I thought at the time “oh, how bad can it be?” Let me just say, that it’s worse. But rewarding too in some sick and twisted way.

I’m going for lunch.