A lot of writers say that the first step to making a lot of progress on their writing is to turn off the internet. For me, this is not the case. The internet is an incredibly amazing tool for me when I'm writing, and it can speed the process up a lot.

When I was in high school, I wanted to write a novel that had octopus-like aliens in it. But, first, I needed to really know what octopuses look like when they move. I needed to research octopi. So, I went to the library and checked out all the octopus books I could. This was fun and useful, but it didn't show me an octopus in motion. Next, I convinced my mom to take me to the coast for a day, and we hit every aquarium we could find. At one of them, there was an undersea show where a diver went in to the tank, picked an octopus up, and kind of waved its tentacles around. This made me sad, because it wasn't the octopus moving under its own motion and therefore was basically useless to me. At another aquarium, I stared at a sleeping octopus for three hours straight -- it twitched once. (Come to think of it, it's pretty amazing that my mom put up with this...)

Eventually, we did find a documentary video through an inter-library loan program. But... Seriously! That's a long, slow process for learning what octopuses are like when they move.

These days, if I want to write a story with owls in it, I don't have to drive over to the library, dig through the shelves, bring books home, put a video on inter-library loan, and schedule day trips to zoos and wildlife reserves. I can just type "owl" into youtube, and, WITHIN SECONDS, I'm watching and listening to owls! Within minutes, I'm back at my word document writing my story.

So, if I also spend an extra ten minutes writing a post like this... Well, I'm still coming out months ahead.

Kitten reorganization time!

This is when you find a kitten sleeping on, say, a couch; pick it up and carry it around until you find a different kitten sleeping on, say, a bed; swap the kittens; and proceed until kitten reorganization time is over.

There is an entire community of people devoted to pretending that animals can talk. Somehow, in all my years of mourning the end of Watership Down and quietly writing Otters In Space all alone, I never noticed this.

Last weekend, I attended Rainfurrest, up in Seattle. My limited research in preparation suggested that Rainfurrest would be a great deal like any science-fiction convention. Except a lot of people would be wearing animal costumes. In short, that expectation was about right. But... Knowing it and experiencing it were completely different.

The halls were filled with animals. Foxes, wolves, cats, otters, raccoons... Walking around, talking, exactly like people do. Because, of course, they were people. Wearing costumes. But... I can't explain it. I've sat at my computer dreaming about a world where the otters have spaceships for years... And, so, if I found the experience of a furry convention a little magical, I suppose it shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

The best part, though, was hearing Phil Geusz -- one of the writing panelists -- talk about the history and future of furry writing. I attended a reading he gave of two of his stories -- one about a rabbit on a spaceship, the other about a boy who convinced a magician to turn him into a horse. I didn't know anyone else was writing stories like that! And, to hear him tell it, we writers of fiction about anthropomorphic animals are at the beginning of an entire movement. He compared furry writing today to the first appearance of Golden Age science-fiction in the late 1930s. I don't know if he's right... But, god, I hope he is. It was incredibly inspiring.

So, now, until the next convention, I will return to quietly writing away. But, this time, instead of being a strange oddity, my work is part of an entire genre. Furry science-fiction. Sci-furry.

"Ready to be tucked in?" I ask.
"You need to tickle me first," Elaine answers.

Apparently, being tickled to sleep is now part of the nightly routine.

It makes me a little crazy that Elaine leaves children's books strewn all over the house. I know they're at risk of being eaten by dogs, and it just generally looks like poor treatment of books. Books belong on shelves. Organized. Possibly alphabetically.

However, I noticed that the bookshelf of children's books upstairs was looking a little thin, so I wandered around the house and gathered up an armful of twenty books that Elaine has brought down over the last week. Carrying that armful back upstairs, I was struck by just how many different books this little girl reads every day, even though she can't even read yet.

Although I question the quality of treatment that these books get in her hands, I cannot deny that they are getting loved. I'm so glad we have them.

Every couple years for about as long as I can remember, my family has gone over to Winchester Bay for a big family reunion with bunches of relatives that I can hardly keep straight, since I don't see them all that often. People gather for breakfast, and each branch of the family takes a turn whipping up pancakes or waffles in a little hotel kitchen. And, most importantly, on Saturday we're all ferried over by boat to an island beach where we cook dinner over a giant bonfire.

When I was about ten, we ate corn chowder cooked over that bonfire, and it was one of the tastiest things I've ever eaten in my life. This year, we ate fresh berry cobbler... And, oh my goodness, berries are meant to be cooked that way.

This year was the first time I feel like I really attended the Brownell reunion as an adult. The last reunion was four years ago... and it was a close call. I'd graduated from college. I was married. Daniel and I were living in an apartment in Seattle with two dogs. By all rights, you'd have thought we were adults. However, the generations mostly kept to themselves -- splitting the "kids" off in their own circle.

This time, perhaps precipitated by the introduction of a new generation (three-year-old Elaine and six-month-old Tobias), that didn't happen as much, and I feel like I got to know a lot of my older relatives a lot better. It was a fantastic weekend.

You can do amazing things with tape. I know this because my three-year-old leaves books on the floor, and my (very quick) Sheltie likes the taste of them. Together, they've conspired three times in the last week to break my heart by leaving a tattered, chewed up children's book lying, brokenly on the floor for me to find. Each time, I have dutifully gathered up the pieces and painstakingly taped them back together with thick layers of scotch tape or packing tape (depending on which material better suits the particular book).

Each book has survived. And come out looking much better than I expected.

Nevertheless, every time I tape one of those sacred, holy, beloved objects back together, my sadness that they will one day -- soon even -- be utterly replaced by e-books dissipates.

Maybe e-books won't be so bad.