She's been looking like a queen in a sailor's dream

Here's recent progress on my 19th century D.C. spy caper about a powerful Difference Engine that will end the Civil War - now with warhawk conspiracies, clockwork assassins, two presidents with more in common than they know, two spies with less in common than they think, a conflicted U.S. Marshal, and Bonus! not-at-all mad scientist who can save the world if someone will just give him a chance:
Project: Fiddlehead
Deadline: October 1, 2012
New words written: 5030 (not a terrible multi-day total, but not great)
Present total word count: 50,092 words





Things accomplished in fiction: Got the newspapers involved; took a red-eye train; ran into someone useful in Tennessee; learned the backstory of someone useful from previous books, who will turn up in this one.

Darling du Jour: "Well, the press is free - but some people think you get what you pay for.”

Things accomplished in real life: Daily jogs with the dog before breakfast; inexplicably split my favorite pair of jeans across the thigh while writing; cleaned up my front porch including the hanging flower baskets which had been woefully ignored; removed a tick from the dog's ear; gave the dog a whole bunch of cookies; threw away demolished dog bed; gave the dog more cookies; took the dog for a run lest he turn into a giant fatty; managed the garden.

Cat and Dog Relations: Improving, actually. They both want to hang out with me in the morning, and now will do so peacefully. Last night I heard them occupying the living room together without incident, after gunshots woke everyone up around 3:30 a.m. Still have no idea what that was about, but I'm told that the cops investigated and nothing came of it. (We have a gossipy neighborhood email list.)

Other: Forgot to mention this the other day, but Greyson graduated from Dog School! More precisely, he clep'd out of the Puppy 101 program (because he is brilliant and mostly very well behaved) and ultimately ran through the whole Adult Dog 101 curriculum. On command he will sit, lie down, come, "leave it," walk "loose-leash," greet friends and strangers without jumping, and even stay ... under some duress, we admit. "Stay" is hella-hard for a puppy. So now it's a matter of being consistent and insistent until he escapes Dog Adolescence and quits being an occasional butt-head.