Happy Billy 'Arrison's Birthday!

Oh dear, I AM a geek, and it is SO fun. Today is also Towel Day for Douglas Adams fans (like me) and the Glorious 25th of May for Terry Pratchett fans (like me)-- okay, just TAKE a look at my "friends" page today, the Discworld community has gone all lilacked out. It's hilarious, even for a solemn occasion! (And if you don't understand, this is where the librarian comes in and says "Read 'Night Watch.' NOW." ) Now will people besides myself one day celebrate Billy's birthday on this date too? (As for why today is his birthday, I'm not sure. I think it started out as the 5th and then I forgot and made it the 27th and then after playing around with the dates it landed on the 25th and JUST SEEMED RIGHT, so I had to leave it there. It's always most definitely been in May though. I don't know why that, either). Yes, Tracie, I'm still writing about Billy, and will continue to do so until the rest of the world loves him as I do! Actually I'm just an incredibly slow writer who has been working on the same three novels for the past 10-15 years. Depending on the novel. Not slow, really: distracted, blocked, hung up, having computer problems... that's me.

I am home sick today. I went to the grocery store yesterday and wore myself out, so I am just home today, not getting paid. But being healthier than if I tried to go lead a group of forty 6 year olds around the Museum, orienting loudest I could with the lack of my voice, trying to convince adults that you actually DO get used to the Gravity Room while yet keeling over myself... so I am home today instead. What will I do that does not require energy today? Type inane things about the multiple fictional British things having to do with this date, apparently. I think I'll try to adjust my Princess Rebecca icon (13-year-old novel) to fit on here so I can finally have a picture. (Could get a lilac icon from the Discworld people, but by the time I do it'll be the Not Nearly As Glorious 26th of May... which means something to me, too, maybe it's a non-fictional person's birthday. Have to look into that). Maybe I'll try to get over my writing hang-ups and deal with Jason's WordPerfect for a little while. Maybe I'll just go make myself a cup of tea, which is the healthy thing to do at this moment.

I am a dork, indeed

So in fact I did decide to do some writing today, and have spent the whole day on it, and rather than deal with the whole my-novels-are-in-Word-and-also-quite-possibly-more-complete-in-a-hard-drive-far-far-away-so-I-don't-feel-like-wrestling-with-them-in-WordPerfect issue, and in honor of Billy's birthday, I decided to write The Autobiography of Billy 'Arrison that was bouncing around in my head the other day. I'm going to share it with you. It is five pages long, so I'm going to make a cut to it (aren't I talented):

( Autobiography of Billy 'Arrison )

 Basically it's the first part of his story, right up to the start of The Adventures of Ian Schafer et al-- in which Billy finally makes friends, falls for a girl, discovers that he does indeed have a quite good sense of humor once he lets it loose, and generally Gets a Life, not to mention has the adventures that are the basic plotline of the book. So in other words, if you want to know what happens next, you have to wait until I finish that book. Which, by the way, takes place ten years after it does, because though in MY head the book takes place during MY junior year of high school (fitting with the dates in this autobiography), for a real published book I'm updating it to take advantage of current technology and whatnot (so I can have working class teenagers who carry their own cell phones and a school newspaper with digital cameras), so real people don't have to know about the dates in my head. (The parts about Uncle George won't really show up in the published book, either, so I don't have to worry about matching dates to real people, either). Okay, just had to share because I'm a dork and spent all day on this so I have to do SOMETHING with it. Also now you know who I'm talking about.