What an interesting 24 hours! Like his politics or not, Obama gave an incredible speech. Not to be outdone, McCain chose the governor from Alaska to be his running mate. Don’t know much about her at this point, though did hear that she thinks polar bears shouldn’t be on the endangered species list and shoots wolves from the comfort of low flying airplanes. How…sporting of her. I genuinely do appreciate shaking things up, but a VP is supposed to be ready to lead the country at a moment’s notice. I guess I’m part of the multitude that is very surprised at McCain’s pick.

Well, not entirely. I’m back from my vacation and still in the afterglow of the great weather, friends, family and relaxation (not to mention Tim Horton’s coffee!) I enjoyed in Canada. I’m also an avowed political junkie and so eye-deep in the Democratic Convention tonight with Kerry, Clinton and Biden speaking.

The weather has been brilliant this week here in Ontario, Canada and I’ve been out doing my best to enjoy it. On Monday I was in Toronto and met a few of the S&S Canada people, Nicole, my publicist, Rob, the national accounts manager and Janice the regional manager. Chris of Bakka-Phoneix on Queen Street was also there then we all went back to the store where I met Ben and had a chance to look around. They have a huge selection of SFF in a very cool section of Toronto. If you’re ever there it’s worth a long look. They really know their stuff. I found out they are one of the reporting stores for Locus.

I really didn’t think I’d be that interested this time around, but once I tune in for a quick look I’m quickly amazed by the athleticism and courage of so many of the athletes. The underdog stories are always the best. Got me wondering if anything of the sort has been done in a fantasy context? I haven’t read everything out there in SF&F so it’s quite possible I missed it, but I’d be curious to hear if any writer has incorporated anything like the Olympics in their series.

The weather has been spectacular today. I hit the park around 8ish this morning and put in 5 miles. The breezes were incredible. What a change from just a few weeks ago. It was one of those mornings when you feel like you could run another 50 miles, even if your body is telling your brain “yeah, buddy, you just have to sit their while we do all the work.”

The writing goes well for The Light of Burning Shadows. I typically don’t write the beginning of anything I do until I have the conclusion firmly in my mind. Now that it’s come into focus the start of the book is beginning to gel. I think I’ve even settled on the epigraph, though I’ll hold off on a final decision until I’ve lived with it for a few weeks. For the longest time I was set on a TE Lawrence quote, but now I’m leaning a different way, definitely darker, but also more poetic (which is saying something when comparing to Lawrence). I’ll be curious to see if Americans are familiar with it.