Yesterday was, on the whole, a crap day. Which was kind of strange, because it was also weirdly productive.

The crap part was entirely personal, as we took my dog to the vets and had her euthanized last night. This wasn't something that was unexpected -- she was 16 and had a slowly progressing neurodegenerative problem that was destroying the myelin sheathing around her nerves, and over the weekend we hit the point where she had no control in her hind end and only spotty bladder and bowel control. She was happy and all, but... it was just time. That doesn't make it any better, but she'd already cheated death more often than a hero in a horror movie. You only get to do that so many times.

The productive part was what surprised me -- I did most of the editing of Firegrass, which I finished up and posted this afternoon. That story stars Ben and William, a pair I've posted snippets from here, and will probably post more of at some point later. (And big thanks to Dio and Jason (who'll probably never see he's been thanked here ) for editing) It's easier to rewrite when half your brain's not working, or so it seems. Go figure.

The other productive part was the plotting out of a whole series of short stories, in the tradition of the old pulp fiction action/science hero -- guys like Flash Gordon or Doc Savage. It's a genre that's desperately homoerotic (come on, you can't say otherwise. Strapping muscular action hero who always gets captured, tied up, and 'tortured' by the bad guy, and who's in an unconsumated relationship with his virginal girlfriend? That just screams... well, you can fill in the blanks) and I'd been batting around an idea or two for a while, courtesy of Snowy and Jonathan Coulton, whose song "Skullcrusher Mountain" is an absolute classic. It all pretty much fell into place, though, what with all the turnoil and all. Dunno if it'll go anywhere, as it's not like I've got much time to write what I've already started, let alone more stuff, but...

Oh, and if anyone's got any ideas for appropriately, erm, double entendre-suggesting names for pulp fiction heroes or villains, I'm definitely interested.