Read 'Til You Drop

Last night, Mark and I went to the Aimee Mann Christmas Show.  It was lots of fun - a variety show along the lines of Carol Burnett or Sonny and Cher, but with hip musicians and funny video clips and language that you would *never* hear on TV...  Alas, Aimee was suffering from a terrible cold, and her range was rather, um, limited.  She apologized several times but kept up her end of the bargain as emcee for the evening - the audience was tremendously supportive.

And, partway through the evening, Australian singer-songwriter Ben Lee performed "Numb" off his album, Ripe.  The lyrics begin:

I'm in surgery
It's an emergency
it just occurred to me
Ironically I caught a disease
They take a piece of me
Enjoy the scenery
Counting back from ten but
I will never fall asleep

And I had a perfect story idea.  The type of story idea that completely makes a novel.  The type of story idea that was so perfect for the book I want to write, so absolutely *brilliant* (if I do say so myself!) that I actually laughed out loud, grabbed the notebook out of my purse and scribbled away in the dim light of the Birchmere.

I'm taking eleven days off at Christmas (for the cost of only three vacation days, thanks the the alignment of holidays and relatively generous employer-designated holidays!)  I had planned on making the final edits to MAGIC AND THE MODERN GIRL. 

But now I get to invest some of that time in writing up a few chapters for the New and Improved Super Secret Project.

I can't wait.

Mindy, counting the days till Christmas, more eagerly than most small children