Bring on the weekend!

It’s been a good week, but a busy one. Feels more busy because last weekend I was caught up in doing our taxes. The IRS online system took a lot of work, but it did pay off: Not only are they done (state too) but the system caught a major error on my part. Mis-entering one number had added about $1,000 to the tax bill, so I feel very pleased to have corrected that (even if I can’t take the credit).
Otherwise:
•I read over my Applied Science stories as preparation for replotting Brain From Outer Space. I picked up several details I want to incorporate, several that I probably can’t (I’d love to use Elegy Walker and Eisenstein from Not In Our Stars But in Ourselves, but they just don’t work) and occasionally winced. The side effect of doing 12 stories in a series and at a fairly rapid pace (for me) apparently led to my reusing lines and phrases here and there (all the guys seem to fiddle with their ties a lot, for instance). Overall though, I still like them.
•I reworked The End of the World on the Cutting Room Floor and it looks good. We’ll see if the writing group thinks so next week.
•I got 3,000 words further into Let No Man Put Asunder. Still missing all those chapters I lost, and I think one change I made today (to a key setting midway through the book) may need to change back. The original setting now looks fresher than I thought and it suits the plot better. But we’ll see.
•I finished Southern Discomfort. It was a rushed ending, perhaps (I was still squicked out by writing about rape apologist Steven Landsburg), but it brought out lots of elements I’ll need to deal with in the rewrite. One of them being Maria’s character arc: It ends very awkwardly, and none too happily. Not death, but emotionally painful and not in a satisfactory way. The sad ending of Affairs of Honor worked for me, but it doesn’t feel right here. I’m not sure what will work, though.
•I submitted two stories (one already came back) and applied for two freelance gigs.
•My newest And column came out.
•Demand Media has been running a bonus program where if you turn in 75 articles in a month, you get a cash bonus. March was the second month I’ve qualified (payment came today). And I’m about 25 articles into this month’s quota. But I’m not going to post this week’s work—it’s later than planned, and TYG is upstairs waiting for company.