So I’m riding home from the airport on one of those shared ride busses, and I’m sitting next to a rather dapper looking fellow with a tweed suit and dark rimmed glasses. He has wild curly black hair and a distracted look on his face.

It’s been a long flight. I’m not really in the mood to talk. He doesn’t say anything, so neither do I.

An hour later we arrive at his destination, and he pays the driver with a credit card, and the driver asks, “So you’re a doctor or something?”

“Actually,” he says with a slight Russian accent, “I’m a scientist.”

I’m already kicking myself.

“What, like a nuclear scientist?” the driver asks.

“No, actually I’m a rocket scientist.”

Now I’m really kicking myself. “Darn,” I say, “I’m a science fiction writer! I should have been talking to you all this way!”

He looks at me, mouth open. “You’re a science fiction writer?” he says. “I love science fiction!”

But we’re at his hotel and he has to get off, and the driver has to drive me home. So it was a lost opportunity for both of us.

Lesson learned: Always strike up a conversation with someone you’re sitting next to, because you never know. It might be someone you’re actually interested in talking to.

Ever seen that Seinfeld episode where the Soup Nazi would scream, “No soup for you!”

Well, there were no pomegranates for me.  After a total of nine stores, one helpful produce person told me, “Oh, they’re out of season.  You won’t find any anywhere for at least a couple months.”

Great.

Last night, working on my novel, I came to a scene where the characters are standing in front of a bin full of pomegranates, and I realized I really needed to have a pomegranate in front of me for the scene to continue. I need one in my hand.

Some call it research, some call it a sudden onset of writer’s procrastination, but I stopped right there and went for a walk to the local grocery store.

The sky outside still held an afterglow from the sunset, the last gasp of light from the day. The color mesmerized me. A very deep blue-purple (would that be called burple?) and bands of clouds like lines, so I walked in a daze. By the time I reached the store, a mere two blocks away, it had faded to black and it was full-on evening.

Inside I passed temptation after temptation. Beer, chips, candy, cookies … passed them all, intent on my mission. I must find a pomegranate.

The characters, you see, are discussing the seeds that Hades tricked Persephone into eating, thus binding her to the underworld and causing winter every year. It’s an important scene because the pomegranate seeds play an important role in my story.

Alas, as fate would have it, there were no pomegranates in the store!

Miffed, I picked up some bananas instead, and then consoled myself with a dozen flavored yogurts (need them for breakfast, anyway), and picked up a bottle of wine, and a jar of peanut butter, and some cookies, and a couple bags of chips… By the time I got up to the front register I had an entire basket full of stuff, things I’d put in the cart without even thinking of it because my mind was still on the novel. Fortunately I came to my senses before I actually entered the checkout line … I had come on foot! There was no empty trunk of a car waiting for all this stuff in the parking lot.

And then, standing there, blind spots appeared in my vision, and my heart sank. The sign of an oncoming migraine.

I abandoned the cart and walked quickly home, took meds, saved my files and shut down the computer, and went to bed.

This evening … as long as the migraine doesn’t make a return appearance … my quest for a pomegranate will continue.

This weekend I and my kids will be at…

If you can’t join us, you can keep checking over at my Flickr Site for pictures uploaded directly from my phone.

There will be, no doubt, some pretty wild shots!

Anyone having problems sleeping tonight is more than welcome to hang out with me on my second night guarding the spaceship.  I brought my USB camera and am broadcasting live all night (or as long as my WiFi keeps working) on WriterCam.com.

I’m spending the night working on my novel, and fending off those who may try and sabotage the spaceship.  Which, oddly enough, I guess is possible … which is why I’m here.

You’ll never guess what I’m doing.

I’m guarding a spaceship.

I am, right now, sitting in the Crystal Ballroom at the InterContinental Hotel in Dallas, typing away on my buddy Bill’s computer (I brought my little writing machine but, alas, forgot the power cord) and guarding the “Pixel,” a prototype lunar lander developed by Armadillo Aerospace. Apparently its in the contract that there must be someone in the room with the spaceship at all times.

It didn’t say that the person had to be awake, however, and so the hotel thoughtfully has rolled in a bed for me to sleep in.

It’s going to be very weird, sleeping next to a spaceship in the middle of the Crystal Ballroom.

It’s the keyboard that’s new.

I love it.

I started out a writer, then bought a IBM PCjr wayyy long ago, for the sole purpose of using it as a word processor. Unfortunately the computer was such a piece of junk that I had to become a computer technician to make it work. Thus, it led me down a path that at first I loved, but after years have come to be desperately sick of.

Recently I walked away from that path. Yet it comes back to haunt me, and I get asked questions … some of which I don’t know the answer to.

Not knowing the answer used to terrify me. In the IT world, it’s a sign of weakness. Unprofessionalism. Uber-geeks are supposed to be all-knowing.

So now someone asks me an uber-geek question and I don’t know it, my initial reaction is to internally panic. Then I realize … NO! I do NOT have to know this anymore!

The flood of relief is intoxicating. I smile. I sometimes even giggle. I tell the hapless audience, “Um, I have no idea. Call the IT department.”

The IT department is in Majokakjhpajhae India. They look at me in horror. “No, please, don’t make me call them.”

“Why not? I have to.”

“But… but…”

It’s true. I have to call them as well. I’ve been stripped of my godlike powers over the network. I can do nothing but call, and watch some poor guy on the other side of the world try and figure out why my computer is acting up … I watch them move my mouse around, guessing at things, trying this and that, and all the while I know he’s on the wrong track — and I don’t care that he’s on the wrong track. Because while he’s doing that, I’m on the phone with my fiancee, or I’m working on something on my iPaq. The computer problem is no longer my responsibility.

And that is so sweet.

I’ve started weaning myself off of technical publications, too. Letting subscriptions lapse. Opting out of newsletters. But there’s one I find hard to let go of … I will, eventually … but it’s called Good Morning Silicon Valley. It’s hard to let that one go because those guys think so much like I do.

This morning I was reading about how Microsoft is now starting again to attack the open source community, and it raised my hackles. I thought, jeeze, just when I was starting to like Microsoft, just as I was thinking that, okay, the behemoth has mellowed and was becoming a kinder, gentler monopoly … then something like this. The big beast still lives, with a hunger that still desires to consume the entire world.

But then I step back … and ask myself:  why do I care?

I take a deep breath. I sigh. I let it go.

I don’t care. I write for a living now, full time. The computer is now just a tool. I don’t care what operating system is on it. All I care about is that the network connection is live, and the printer works.

I have things to write about. Part A going into Part B. This beer was good, that coffee not so good. This or that gizmo is groovy. Or, especially, how is Jon August going to get away from the succubus that has a lease on this soul?

Goodbye IT world. I know you should never say never, but … I never want to go back. Let it move to India.

Of all the short stories I’ve written over the last several years, I’m down to only ten that I’m shopping around. The rest have either sold or I’ve retired.

Some of them I retire by deleting them. I’m sick of them, I’m tired of looking at them. They haven’t impressed anyone. Time to cut the losses, goodbye. Nothing is ever really wasted because that frees the idea up to be used again in a different way.

Other stories, however, I think are worthy yet haven’t found a suitable market. That’s the chance you take when you write to please yourself and not a specific market. It’s a choice we all must make.

So do I delete these stories that I deem are still worthy, yet I can’t stand looking at them anymore? No. Not those. I’ll put them up on my website on the off chance that someone will read them and get something out of them. Others say you should never do that, but … if I’m sick of shopping them around, that’s that. I’m sick of it.

Time to write new stories.

The two stories I am talking about, though … I almost did that, but at the last moment found new markets on Ralan that I thought might fit. So off they went.

I once again have ten stories in circulation.

UPDATE: Make that nine stories. One came back already. I’m retiring that one.