this is beginning to look like work

I am in a very strange, to-me-unprecedented writing place.

Right now I have three contracted pieces in the editing phase--a novel, a short story, and a nonfiction piece that actually requires sources, for Pete's sake.

And yesterday I got a questionnaire from the editorial assistant at my publishing house, wanting to know everything about my publishing, professional, and personal histories down to the bellybutton lint.

Last night I had a minor anxiety dream in which I opened a newspaper and found a tabloid-like article about a speeding ticket and joyride I had taken with a couple of juvenile delinquents ten years ago (an entirely made-up dream incident, by the way--although the haircut I had in the dream-photographs was real enough, and criminal enough, for embarrassment).

Now I have to go look up credible sources on the history of fan conventions.

Really. It's too weird.