I had a good night's sleep after an ultra-long day yesterday.  Had a lovely phone call from m-i-l this morning.  Checked my f-list, checked a couple of sites, waved a duster hopefully at the furniture, waved beloved off on his motorbike, had lunch, sat down to scribble, inadvertently copied the folder I was working from, deleted the copy ( Read more... )

Well.  That's a turn up for the books (whatever that means ( Read more... )

I have failed in my resolution.  I will not have the short story written, polished and submitted somewhere before my birthday.

'Cos I am crap.

I have managed to whittle it down from a slovenly 4,444 words to an almost smart 1,657, though.  (Apparently when I'm tired, I'm really hard on my words.)

Consequently, I may have to build it up a bit again.  ( Read more... )

Has been completed successfully.  Hooray ( Read more... )

I've got to crack on with another novel.

Because this short story is killing me.

The idea was to do short things for a while, because with short things you get the beginning, middle and end following one another in relatively quick succession.  Then you polish them up, ignore them for a while, polish them again - and send 'em off.

But that "relatively ( Read more... )

The problem with working - or not - 7 days per week is that after a while, all days are the same.

Consequently, I woke up this morning so convinced that it was Friday that when I saw Thursday's tablet in the pack, winking up at me, I didn't think "Oh, it must be Thursday, after all."  I thought,  "Oh no!  I missed Thursday's tablet!"

So I dutifully ( Read more... )

Writing.

It's a peculiar way to pass your time. Never straightforward, usually intriguing, mostly frustrating. I wouldn't have it any other way, though.

I've mentioned "the ping factor" before - the things that make a little bulb go on in my head that sets a story in motion. Sometimes it's not just a light, sometimes it's a bombshell. Sometimes ( Read more... )

I finished the new short story last night.   Which was a shock. Just under 3,500 words, unless I do decide to shoehorn some futurestuff in, but it may well stand alone.  We'll see.

It's fermenting in a dark place now.  I'll go back in a couple of weeks and see how it's come out. 

Rooting around on my backup discs this morning (like you do when you can't sleep or think of anything productive to do) I've found half a dozen story fragments. I'd actually forgotten about them.

It's clear, though, that I really ought to make plot notes. Or at least attempt to come up with a plot....