Okay, I'm back. Yesterday was incredibly productive for me as I decided to dedicate it to writing, lunch with a girlfriend and finding new magazines to market.

First, I think I have found a great way for me to crank out 2,500 words (ten pages) before noon: start early and stay offline. It was hard, especially when I wanted to check my email, read everyone else's blogs, research the name of a certain restaurant or see the status of an eBay auction I'm following, but I held my ground.

Having to meet a girlfriend downtown for lunch was nice too. It got me out of the house and I could read and brainstorm about anything at all on the subway rides there and back. Now I have three new article ideas and the glimmer of a novel in the shiny new idea box.

When I got back home, however, I couldn't get another word on the page for the WIP (work in progress), so I did a careful examination of the magazine article query letters I sent in 2006 and the number of publications I had targeted.

I was totally stunned that it was less than a dozen.

How on earth was I expecting to expand the roster of magazines that I write for when I'm sending queries out to only 11 of them? Isn't that kind of like trying to empty out a flooded canoe with a thimble? Or drink a shake without a straw?

Three hours later, I had the guidelines for another 20 publications. Later today I'll head to the reference library to get a look at back issues to learn more about them and how to gear my article ideas so that they can't possibly resist them.

But for now, I've got some web surfing to do.