This was a more-or-less planned outage for Writing Metrics. My parents came into town from halfway across the country to see our new home and celebrate my birthday (I'm 55, thanks; still going strong). It was an amazing visit, with many good times, much great cooking, and a lovely housewarming party with all the friends we have in the area who never stopped being our friends during our nine year sojourn in the Bay Area. I have to admit that I wasn't originally too thrilled with the idea of moving back to Sacramento - I'm a big city person at heart, and if I had my choice I'd be living in Manhattan or smack in the middle of Chicago -- but there's nothing in the world like a houseful of really good friends. Which means that, despite everything, it feels wonderful to be home.

Even while my parents were here, work also attacked. I have become very popular with my new firm since I started in February, and the 60 hours per month I promised them has grown pretty dramatically. Last week I worked from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. two days in a row. Not surprisingly, I spent yesterday flat on my back with the worst migraine I've had in years.

Need I say that none of this was conducive to writing fiction or memoir or even book reviews?

The good news is that I've scored a membership in the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego at the end of October. I am majorly psyched about this convention. I've been twice before and always had a wonderful time. I'm sort of hoping that my work with the Fantasy Literature blog will have raised my profile a bit, so that when I approach an author I hold in high esteem, he or she won't be polite but distant; actually, that doesn't happen that much (this is a great group of people), but it's sort of nice to be recognized. I hope to blog the convention for Fantasy Literature, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, I've finally finished reading Kat Richardson's Downpour, and should have a review at Fantasy Literature quite soon. I've also torn through Duane Swierczynski's Fun and Games at the speed of light, and there will be a review of that book on this site in fairly short order. Do keep checking back, please!