Nice walk up Twin Peaks this morning. I'll miss it, as I don't know when I'll be back in SF in the foreseeable future. I'm likely under a travel restriction through about July, though I may be able to sneak down to California briefly over the holidays.

I'm returning to Portland this afternoon, calendula_witch will be there on Sunday, driving the Witchmobile as she'll stay for a couple of weeks. shelly_rae is heading to Portland today as well, to be my cancer buddy, and calendula_witch's, through the surgery and the hospitalization following.

Lots of busy coming up, including the Niece's sixth birthday party on Friday and an early family Thanksgiving on Sunday. This is good, as the surgery is a week from today, and by about Monday I will be an utter wreck.

Had a stray thought while walking about the difference between my business writing (Day Jobbery) and my fiction. Yesterday I executed a quick project, only a few hours, in which I repurposed some existing text from our Web site and from a handful of sales proposals. This is completely normal behavior, because it preserves brand consistency, keeps me on message, and helps the salespeople by offering predictable language they're already familiar with. I'm not required to be original every time, in fact, quite the opposite. The creativity there comes from figuring out how to meet the requirement in the first place, writing introductory, bridging and concluding text, and generally positioning the whole project. Whereas in my fiction writing, I never deliberately repeat myself. (Well, almost never, but it's very unusual.) I go to a fair amount of trouble to not repeat other people, though we all do it by accident sometimes.

This may be about as revelatory as noticing the sky is blue, but I'd never thought of things this way before. Ah, brain, I knew there was a reason I take you for walks.

Also, I've continued to write through all this. Currently revising calendula_witch's draft of Our Lady of the Islands, a book that continues to be an excellent read.

All in all, my head and heart remain unusually calm these last few days. Let us hope for more of the same.