Step one: Wake up. This is the least pleasing step. I was having a very pleasant dream about attending a convention in England with my agent and most of my crew of rotating musicians. Vixy and I got to raid a Tesco's. It was nice. Waking up was so not on the agenda.

Step two: Lilly realizes that I have woken up. On weekends, I tend to stay in bed long enough for Lilly to come over and spend some time on my chest, getting heavy-duty affection directed her way. This is because I foolishly believe that if I adore her enough before I start trying to do things, she might leave me alone to do them.

Step three: Check email. Hello, email. Yes, there certainly is a lot of you, and no, none of you really appears to matter. That's always a pleasant discovery on a Saturday morning, as the last thing I want is an emergency or for an unexpected deadline to pop up and wave to me.

Step four: Stare blankly at The Brightest Fell for about three minutes. After that, decide that I am not yet in the necessary head-space to struggle with navigating those particular waters, and close the file again. (Toby Daye, book five. Because finishing four of them in a year just wasn't enough.)

Step five: Copy-edit two chapters of the manuscript I'm currently copy-editing for a friend of mine. It's on today's to-do, even: 'edit chapters 10 and 11.' I am, at this point, sufficiently engrossed by the story that I wouldn't be surprised if that turned into 'and 12 and 13 and just keep going already,' but since I also have to finish the next Velveteen vs. today, it won't go on forever.

...and now, pants, and the ceremonial Saturday morning stroll to the 7-11, hence to obtain a soda whose volume is slightly more than the volume of my skull. Because that will make me feel better.

How's your Saturday?

Well, I just finished copy-editing my friend's manuscript and returned it for review. Because I am virtuous and hard-working and industrious and stuff. (I am now awaiting the crews of trained ninja assassins and rabid pixies to burst through my bedroom windows and slaughter me, but that's another matter altogether.) As my reward, I shall go and see Bolt with my housemate. That's how we roll around here. Oh, yeah.

I'm actually quite pleased with myself. I managed to copy-edit -- lightly, but still thoroughly -- an entire manuscript, while not falling behind in my own (often self-assigned) deadlines. As I said earlier, I have some things I have to finish this weekend, but none of them have been endangered by my taking the time, so ha.

Copy-editing someone else when I spend so much time being copy-edited was interesting, because I've learned a lot of rules of grammar and punctuation without intending to; they were hammered through my admittedly thick skull through constant and occasionally angry repetition. (You'd be angry too if you'd given me the same correction fifty-seven times.) There are a lot of casual behaviors, text-wise, that are technically incorrect, but which we happily do anyway. What's interesting is that they often create a slight feeling of 'something is wrong here' when we look at those sentences in a critical fashion, yet without knowing the actual rule, we may or may not be able to articulate the actual problem. The brain is fascinating. So is the language.

...wow, that was all a little closer to 'deep thinking' than I like to be on a Saturday afternoon immediately after completing a large task. Blame it on the soda the size of my head (which is woefully now gone to the great soda fountain in the sky).

Off to the movies; don't burn down the Internet while I'm away, and I'll reward you later with my cranberry sauce recipe.