I started a new short story (or novella? Ah!) set in one of my worlds last weekend. I’m a few thousand words in and I’m absolutely loving the feel of the world again. I set it in a familiar world to get excited about the idea of going back to revise one of the drafts set in the same world (at a different time, in a different place). Writing this is doing everything for my enthusiasm I hoped it would. Not only that, but I thought I’d had all of my big, necessary worldbuilding questions answered in regards to this world’s history and system(s) of magic, but apparently I don’t. Writing this story, with its vociferous narrator and her particular mindset, helped me to see that. I love when one story and its characters helps me with another.

The other fun and really exciting thing about this story is my narrator herself. She’s much edgier than the last main character I spent a significant amount of time with and the contrast is really thrilling. She’s so vastly different from me it’s both an excitement and a challenge to dig into her brain and look out from her eyes. (It may sound pretty gross, but I definitely do imagine myself as something of a leech in these characters’ heads when I’m writing first person. I’m weird but we knew that.)

In other news, it’s also my first wedding anniversary, the week of my sixth anniversary of being together, and it’s Oscar night. The anniversary(ies?) we celebrated with a lot of sushi on Friday and an obnoxiously huge steak to share last night. That steak made my life complete. (Who needs gluten when there’s steak? Carnivorous GF folks of the world, rejoice!) I should have photographed it, but considering the husband and I were starving, there wasn’t really any time to waste. (Also, my iPhone has no flash and you know restaurants with mood lighting that equates to shadowy darkness…) Both anniversaries sort of shocked us. I’m surprised it’s been a year since the wedding, and even more surprised that it’s been six years of us together. In a good way. But because we celebrated both Friday and Saturday, I’ve spent a lot of today writing and working. I’m also very excited about the Oscars (but less excited than I could be because I haven’t managed to see all of the nominated movies — though 10 is a lot to try to tackle before Oscar night!) and the whole shebang. The husband is less thrilled with my taking over the remote for a whole evening (as well as my decision to sit there and write between awards with the netbook on my lap) but then, Oscar night comes but once a year! As does our anniversary… but I think the steak counts as time well spent to celebrate each other. Right? Steak makes up for tonight being about Oscar… yes.