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This is to prove I haven't died, dropped off the face of the earth, or fallen into a coma (comma would be more interesting).

Life is merely life. Day goes by day. Doing rewrites.

We decided to do Potlatch, so that's something. Must get back to chapter. Have to finish reworking a chapter a night before I sleep. It's like knitting, with words.

I hate JSTOR. They lie there on Google like a fat, sleek, contented snake, full of all this cool information, and they won't let you have it. They just taunt you with that one, single page.

Oh sure, they SAY that their mission is to make all scholarly journals from 1665 to the present free and available for research, but not if you're an independent researcher. Only if your an accredited institution  paying them their archiving and subscription fee.

Marriage is an institution.  Does that count?

Other institutions let you have their information for free. Perseus is free. Project Gutenberg is free. Most universities let me download their student dissertations for free and other publications for free. I can even access most of what I need from Google books.

Carnegie Mellon funded JSTOR to be an available, free, scholarly resource. To download a four-page article would cost me $12, since I'm not an accredited institution. That doesn't sound very free.

It pisses me off. It's pissed me off for a while, and I'm not alone.  Why does JSTOR hate the independent researcher?

If I could program, knew Athena or Shibboleth, I swear I'd spend weeks hacking the bastards and open source the code, and go to jail with my head held high. Free and available for research my ass.

They won't even answer their email. Frickin' snobs.

I'm happy to be able to say I've finished my rewrite.  I now believe there are people who like writing, and there are people who like rewriting.

I'm one of the former.   I haven't enjoyed rewriting.  It wasn't as fun, although I can admire the craft of it, and it's certainly necessary.  Good lord is it necessary!

So after a concentrated effort, I took my 150,000 word book down to a much more slender 119,000 words.  That includes adding a chapter, and several new scenes, so I'm pleased about that.

Now Mark gets to read it (thank you Mark) before I release it to what I hope will be a happy group of readers.

This morning, I figured out the elevator speech for my novel, thanks to the shower.  Showers are always inspirational.

My book is an historical thriller about Jewish scholars with swords who save the world.

Thank you, Michael Chabon, for planting the seed on this one that got me started.