Apparently this is my one hundredth post – in just under eleven months. Well I never.

You may be wondering what happened to my rewrite of The Ghost Smuggler. Well…it kind of <cough> stalled.

It turns out that training for a marathon takes up a lot of time and what free time remains is spent wondering how much longer before it’s okay to go to bed. You’d have thought I’d learned my lesson the first time but apparently not.

We also had my parents over for a couple of weeks at the beginning of September which was fun but not conducive to the crafting of fiction.

So, The Ghost Smuggler has been languishing on my hard drive. I have been thinking about it, so it’s not all bad.

I did submit a story (Only Friends) last night and was rewarded with what has to be the fastest response I’ve ever had – six hours according to GMail. It was a rejection unfortunately, but still, that’s pretty impressive. Now I have to resist the urge to bombard the editor with every other story I’ve got in a desperate attempt to find one they like. That would be rude.

I have a day off today and I’m hoping to get a couple more submissions out but I’ve got errands to run so it’s unlikely I’ll be doing any actual writing. The race is in less than two weeks and we’re in the midst of our taper which means more time and more energy. It remains to be seen whether that means I get back to writing but certainly I should be able to pick things up post-race.

In the meantime, here’s a few pictures from my parents’ visit. All images Copyright Philip Harris 2012.

The Library on Bowen Island, BC

Sunset over English Bay, Vancouver, BC

A window cleaner in downtown Vancouver, BC