Random thoughts...

1) I've been reading Lev Grossman's The Magicians lately, based on a review I saw on a website. Very cool novel and it has more than a few (at least for me) "punch you in the gut" moments. (As you might guess, the somewhat grim title and topic of the review itself is what led me to look into the novel.)

2) Thanks to one of those "punch you in the gut" moments, I caught a spurt of inspiration for PbN last weekend. Over about 48 hours I polished off two new chapters, over 30 pages of material. I NEVER write that prolifically under normal circumstances. That's just insane and even I'm wondering what the hell came over me. If I could sustain it, I could write this whole damn thing in less than a week.

3) This image has been making its way around Facebook and some other political websites I frequent.

My first thought when I saw it? "Holy shit, Bill O'Reilly wants to create WAS." That was the James Bond-like spy/commando organization I created back in junior high school for a role-playing game and some of my first forays into creative writing. (Also the origin of our TFV agents Alex and Mariah.)

Of course, anyone who thinks the same idea as one come up with by a hormone-addled 13 year old is good for real public policy is probably off their rocker completely. But that's not much of a stretch for Mr. O'Reilly. WAS was a cool idea for a fictional adventure story. I'd never imagine it working in real life.