Thank God I like magazine writing. Every story sucks the life right out of me. I couldn't birth one of these things every day.

Exhausted right now. All adrenaline yesterday as the first great rush hit, I got the first 500 words and the pieces started to fit together.

But the inevitable turmoil this morning, and the pieces suddenly didn't want to squeeze into their stations, panic about having enough material as I started to fill some of it in. Fighting it much of the morning and afternoon.

And then it just passed again. A good idea came, and another and another, and pretty soon I whipped open a new document to just outline it all out. And it all fit! Every single piece. Except maybe one, and I'm not sure it needs to be in there, which is good because I don't think I have space for all of this, and it's a fascinating topic, but maybe it's kind of a different topic.

(Sorry this is all too general. Can't say too much about particulars till it comes out.)

I've got the first 1100 words done and a 970-word outline for the other 2000, so yeah, I'll never fit half of it in. But that's good. The best will stay, the lesser moments will go. I think I've got the real outline now, that will actually hold, plus a lot of the copy that goes with it. I'm in the home stretch now. Even though I've been on it off and on for three weeks, it all comes in a big rush at the end. But I feel like Keith Richards.

Lots more work to do fleshing it out and especially sharpening it, but that's my favorite part. Can't wait to have it all together.

And then start over again on another one.

From Reuters and everywhere else today:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean has surged to the top of the Democratic pack in a poll of Californians released on Tuesday that also showed a Democratic candidate would finish slightly ahead of President Bush in the state.

The Field poll found Bush's popularity falling in the largest state, with 40 percent of Californians saying they would support the eventual Democratic party nominee versus 39 percent for Bush.

The poll found that among the state's Democrats 16 percent favored former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in the presidential primary, ahead of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry at 15 percent and Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman at 14 percent.

...

Gary Ross is on Charlie Rose right now (on my Tivo, on my lunchbreak), talking about casting Toby McGuire in Seabiscuit. He said he told Toby he didn't have a second choice: "If you say no, I'm boned."

Jeff Bridges is laughing his ass off.

Is there another meaning to that verb that I'm not aware of, or did he just say what I thought?

Charlie does not miss a beat or betray an emotion, resumes interrupting with his next question.