2,500 words on "Amber" now. It's really opening up. This story is a series of layers, so sometimes I'm catching myself writing a layer too soon or a layer too late, which means a lot of cutting and pasting. I think it's going to work, though. I'm trying to keep it under 10,000 words, if only not to spend too much time away from the novel.

Yesterday after work the wife, the baby and I went to Salem Willows, which is a beautiful wooded and hilly peninsula jutting out into Salem Harbor that used to be a contagious disease hospital, but became a municipal park in 1858. Its heydey long past, Salem Willows is still a fun place to while away a late summer's afternoon, as it still has a knot of arcades, ice cream stands, and Chinese food joints offering such odd culinary wonders as chop suey sandwiches (I kid you not), as well as a fishing pier with a seasonal bait shop and boats for rent. Of course, aside from the fact that the park is surrounded on three sides by water - always a selling point for me - Salem Willows also has a number of Skee-Ball machines, the classic ones with wooden balls!

If you've been following the Jersey Exile since its inception, you already know about my affinity for Skee-Ball (a.k.a "The Apotheosis of Sport"). Maria and I blew a few quarters and shook the cobwebs off our game, in preparation for another summer. The baby seemed to like all the bleeps and bloops of the arcade, although her Skee-Ball days are still a few years off. Still, a former Jerseyan can dream...