Having fun, fun, fun.

So I tore apart my chinese steampunk/wuxia story and ditched A LOT of what I wrote on Tuesday, got to know my main character better and designed a stunning wardrobe for her, changed the plot and pumped up the backstory of another character after coming across a scrumptiously must-use piece of information whilst looking up some geographical data, thought of a different and much better ending, and, most importantly, found the story's voice.

Once you've got a story's voice, it's all uphill. And then, eventually, hopefully, it's a downhill cruise :)

Oh, and I stuck in a few dragons. I was trying to stay away from them, but it felt wrong to so deliberately excise them from the tale. They mostly appear in walk-on parts anyway, sort of dragonish guest artists, but they need to be there in the background, otherwise their absence is too distracting. Besides, one should exploit every possible opportunity to pop a dragon into a story, especially if you write a lot of SF.

I love holidays. It's so nice to luxuriate in a new story rather than squishing it in between the daily grind and, sometimes, forgetting to enjoy the process.

And apropos dragons, here's a cool, very musical Oriental Dragon site.