November 25, 2007
First fire in the studio stove in a long time (since last March?). Felt good. Wind blew all night. Quite cool out today.

Kathy and I worked on the roof of the house and studio yesterday afternoon. I foam-filled holes in the roofing (termites?) and drained the coolers while she strung Christmas lights. She loves those damn lights and would leave them up all year if she thought she could get away with it. I think Gretchen Wilson gleefully sings about this in "Redneck Woman."

Speaking of rednecks, got a testy email from a Texas boy, upset with our "left-leaning" editorial in True West, he's cancelling his subscription, etc. I wrote him back and asked him for specifics. It has to do with my Salt War Classic Gunfight and Honkytonk Sue. I'll run the entire exchange tomorrow.

Cleaned out the chicken house. Two big hens left from the old batch and six new Silkies. Have to keep them apart or the big birds will kill them. To boot, they stopped laying eggs. One of the little Silkies started crowing this morning. I just hope there's only one rooster, but that's probably a hopeless wish. He sounds great though and is worth the price of chicken feed, to hear the little cock crow.

Worked most of the afternoon on scenes for the Mickey Free story. Sent them off to Hutton. Still reading Robert McKee's masterful book, "Story," and getting great insight into building strong scenes. For giggles, I Googled his name and come to find out he does these huge story symposiums all over the world, and he's doing one in Vegas on December 7-9. The Top Secret Writer and I will both be at the Riviera Hotel that very weekend at the SASS Convention (he's the key note speaker and I'm doing two sessions, one on "Low Slung Guns" and the other on "When Did The Cowboy Hat Get Its Wings?") Talk about serendipity. Not sure we can get to the McKee Story Sessions at UNLV, but would like to get day passes if they have them. Tickets are $650 for the weekend.

Kathy's back from Home Depot so we have to go back on the roof to finish stringing the lights.

"He who demands little gets it."
-Old Vaquero Saying