I read it in the wind, and I saw it in the sky, and I thought it was the end

Happy America Day to all you Americans.

Meanwhile, Book Two comes out in the UK today, which will matter to all one of you Brits (stylishbastard is this LJ's only UK reader, unless I've lost track) and in Canada a week from Wednesday, in theory, which I think means early August, in practice.

Saw WAR OF THE WORLDS last week. It was excellent, and it got me thinking about the Fermi Paradox, which actually I solved years and years ago, and yet, curiously, my solution is not mentioned by Wikipedia.


( The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Where The Aliens Are! )

I'm at long last picking away at writing a comic-book pitch for Vertigo. Which means writing a story synopsis. Which I really hate. As papersky once said, "it requires everything that writing the book does, without the benefits of writing the book." (uh, that might be a paraphrase rather than a quote.) Usually I just work with an opening scene, a vague story structure, and an even vaguer destination, and writing the book is like travelling over a landscape: the details grow clearer as I approach nearer, and while sometimes I get lost and have to backtrack, it's still a whole lot more fun than painstakingly plotting out every step and turn and ascent before I've even seen the terrain - and if all you've got is a map, you miss a lot of the details, gradients, contours, interesting divertissements, and unexpected surprises that you can only discover in person.

Meanwhile, I've broken through some muscular plateau and have gotten noticeably, and possibly even visibly, stronger in the last two months. I'm pleased, but what the hell? It's not like I've started eating or exercising in any drastically different way. Shrug.