Beaches and encyclopedias--what a combo!

Today was devoted to a family excursion to the beach, Port Aransas to be precise, the place where they have that great sand sulpture competition in the spring. We'd planned on making regular trips this summer, since New Braufels is only a two-and-a-half hour drive from the coast, but rainy weather and other commitments kept us from going. Today was essentially our last open weekend before winter. Turned out to be a great day to do. I don't know if it's because of the lateness of the season or the 9/11 anniversary, but there were very few people out. No waiting at the ferry, no crowds at the beach. The sky was sunny, the temperature only got up into the high 80s and the water was the clearest I've ever seen the Gulf. The girls had a grand time collecting little clams and fish in buckets of water, and playing in the waves with a boogie board we bought to mark the occasion. Great fun was had by all. Lisa and I reaffirmed our desire to some day have a second home on the coast.

Upon my return home, I find an email from Gary Westfahl waiting for me. You may remember that I did three entries for his Encyclopedia of Themes in Science Fiction and Fantasy earlier this year, which were both a great deal of fun, as well as a tremendous amount of work to put together and get right. Well, it turns out that there's a few (make that more than a few) entries that have become "newly available" because those previously assigned to write them backed out on the assignments in one way or another. Westfahl is appealing for some noble soul to step in and write a bunch of them.

First, I'm flattered and humbled that he thought my ham-fisted efforts of encyclopedia writing of a high enough quality to include me in this limited appeal. Second, I simply don't have the time to take more assignments on--this would entail another road trip to College Station for research, another looming deadline. I'm still struggling to get the rewrite finished on that unbelievably stubborn "Apocalypse" story, for crying out loud. Not to mention that Jacqueline Carey interview that's not going to transcribe itself. But instead of deleting the message, I keep rereading it. Several of the topics--Giants, Jupiter and the Outer Planets, etc.--are ones I really wanted to do the first time around. It's not easy at all to say "no." Obviously, I'm going to have to give this some additional thought over the next day or so.

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