Monday

Great letter in Saturday's L.A. Times from an insightful fellow named Marvin Wolf, regarding Casanegra. He was dead-on about how calculated the entire venture was, but wrong if he thinks we were "exploited." And also probably wrong about how efforts like this place the future of literature at risk. It was a pure marketing move, and the gestation has been honestly described. If the BOOK isn't good, I'm man enough to face the criticism. But I have the delicious sense that there's a touch of "damn! Why didn't I think of that!" about some of the reactions...
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Took a little longer to get out of bed this morning. I DELIBERATELY didn't do all of my recovery work (spa, range-of-motion work) so that I could feel the Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) from the density workout on Friday. Didn't feel like death, so today we'll try it again.
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Had a long conversation with Mr. Al "Hot Dog" Harvey, an L.A. City Councilman, and 9th Degree blackbelt (honorary, signifying his status as one of Steve Muhammad's first students. By his own admission, that rank should really be about a 6th). What a fantastic martial artist, and a fine gentleman. Also opinionated as hell--he doesn't mince words. But this is a guy who, when he was 17, was tapped by the great Joe Lewis to help him prepare for fights with Bill Wallace. No joke. He's agreed to coach me a bit. Now THAT should be interesting.
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I'm working on the sequel to "Great Sky Woman" today. Tananarive is out of town, visiting her sister in Texas. As soon as she gets back, we start on Tennyson II: "In the Night of the Heat."