Today, more hail which oddly enough, means more writing. Whatever am I going to do when this neat-o weather finally gives in to spring and summer? Why, dig out that Car Novel and finish it finally, I say. Later, later I convince myself. THAT'LL be a project.

I think I might have that dead story whipped. Don't know for certain. I need Steve's input.

Last night we watched I Am Legend and although it's not very much like the story, as a movie standing alone, I liked most of it. Why we needed the male alpha zombie, who knows, but then again, why do we here in the states feel we need to elect a new one every four years? Whatever. We watched both endings. I kind of liked the one in which Will Smith kills himself better, the other one was way too cheesy for me, but both left me rolling my eyes. Again, whatever. I'll take hokey "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston any day.

After Friday evening's INK critique on one of my latest short stories, Steve and I worked together Saturday sorting out the comments and suggestions. By noon, we had fixed the timing problem that plagued the piece since day one (past perfect vs. flashback stuff) and a few hours later, the piece was whipped into submission shape. Now to wait for the next Writers of the Future quarter opening (April 1st).

Next up was deconstruction of Working Title, a story with characters, a setting, and a situation that has a firm grasp of my attention even through all the missing parts. My problem was, still continues to be, that I don't know the ending. Part of that's due to not knowing the thoughts and reactions of the main character when years later, he's brought face to face with the guy who destroyed his dreams. Sounds simple enough but naturally, it's complicated.

We talked through some of the story line and Steve took notes for me. This will be the first story I've had to create an outline for but I think that might be because it's a BIG IDEA story with lots of people and setting stuff thrown in to make it deep and rich. If I can pull this off, it'll be the hardest thing I've ever written, even tougher to write than all those 50K, 60K, 75K NaNoWriMo novels I've hacked out over the years. But I'm not looking at this story, still untitled too btw, as the best thing I'll have ever written, just the toughest and a good learning tool. I've never outlined a short story before; the basics of each usually just flow from my head. This one's been different from day one, perhaps telling me I ought to outline more often. Or maybe I'm starting to think up BIG IDEA stories for the first time and if so, good. I think I'm good at creating believable characters and settings. I could always use some decent ideas and situations.

Today, another old, previously labeled 'dead file' story is being looked at. Too much emotion surrounding the critiques received on that one to talk about. In my eyes, it held such promise once and then, after a suggested rewrite or two or three or more, it all fell apart. Sometimes it might be good to leave something alone and move along to other things. That's been a tough lesson for me to learn although I think I'm getting better at letting my own voice have a say here and there.

We watched No Country for Old Men and The Mist last night. Odd, odd, odd. Naturally, The Mist being from a Stephen King piece (which I found excellent btw back in 1980 or so), sucked so bad it was enough to give a relatively stable person nightmares . . . from the directing and acting. No Country for Old Men was odd in that I like it, but knew that if as a written story it would be presented to our writing group, it would most likely be shredded. Choppy, confusing, almost incomplete seeming scenes, yet I found the dialog a joy and a hoot to listen to. Nothing like watching a Coen movie to make me feel creative and good about myself.

Working Title Number One. I finally printed the whole thing out by individual 'chapters' to try to make sense of it all. I read somewhere that this method can be helpful. Must be helpful for those who aren't this confused.

Working Title Number One is basically a running monologue as it currently sits at just over 5K words. Needs more dialog, much more dialog and several others important structural things I'm sure though I have no idea what at the present. I like the voice of the piece and won't deviate from that. I've already cut most of the beginning out even though I liked the feel it provided to the reader about the narrator. But it was slow and didn't really serve a purpose. Snip, snip. Maybe I can work some of it back in later in the story but I'm not gonna hold my breath.

I'm tempted to cut more out from the beginning (the second beginning for those of you keeping track) but again, it will remove a big part for the reader, this time of the setting. I like the images this new beginning shows but I still, still don't have an ending.

Basically, it's a mess and I don't know what to do with it. All I know is that I want to write this; I like this story. I think, I believe it could be a great story (maybe just to me but I'm okay with that right now). I was hoping by printing out the sections, I could lay them out on the floor and see how the pieces fit together.

It's not working. I might have to break the sections down even further. Paragraph by paragraph? Sentence by sentence? It seems so tedious and goofy. What comes after that? Word by word? Blue screening? Ugh. Never had to do this on a story before, hope to never have to again.

It would seem that too much contained within one section relies on stuff that is followed up in later sections. Three sections are set in the present, four in the past, yet they intertwine. How could I have written such a confusing jumble of words? It makes sense to Me, but only kind of.

ETA: I wonder if I could integrate the second beginning into the exposition part. No, not the crappy exposition part, the part that the story needs in order to be a real story. You know what I mean, don't you?

Third rewrite of Working Title Number Two is in the bag. Working Title Number One hasn't been touched in many days but let's not talk about that one right now. WT Number Two began as a draggingly slow gardener's tale of woe and turned into a not as slow short story of random nature versus predictable lifelessness on the moon. As usual, I've tried to create multiple layers and meanings to the piece and as long as I don't confuse myself and my critique group too badly in the process, someday it might be considered worthy of submission.

How's that for being both obscure and annoying?

Someone told me not so long ago that a writer, particularly an unpublished short story writer should never divulge what he/she was working on in the off chance an editor just happened to be surfing the 'nets and have the finished MS on their desk. Something about not wanting to know the plot in advance. Not sure I understand the advice exactly, or if it was a case of someone talking out their other end or not but I'll play along until I hear otherwise.

In the meantime, I've got a bright rainbow out my back window and the smell of something hot wafting through the house. I should probably go track that down.

I'm good at whining. Whining mostly about how I'm all worried that I won't find an idea to write about and how I won't be able to reach my short story goal this year.

All a load of bull-pucky.

Mid January I did the same thing and less than two weeks later I had a story. It came hard and fast (whoa there Nellie) and it just would not let me have a moment's rest until it was on the screen, rewritten eight times, and finally down on paper.

Then I went back to Working Title, a short that's been kicking my butt since November. It's half done and only recently did I start to feel I knew where the end might be hiding. But because I'm still not terribly certain, get out the 'Woe is me' card. Boo-hoo, sniffle, sniffle, I'm a loozer.

I should know better, really I should. After all, I did just have a brief, little chat with Steve on exactly this topic less than a week ago.

So the other day, I dug out a story I wrote late last year. I really didn't like it, no, I'll say it: I hated it. El Suck-O and all that. But I got it back out and reread it and didn't barf or anything so just maybe, I figured there might be hope for it.

After reading it, I gave it one day to form solidly in my mind (like a mozzarella cheese ball rolled in granular cat litter) and this evening, much earlier this evening which is actually yesterday evening as I typing this and just glanced at the computer clock and...

OH MY GOD, IT'S NEARLY SIX A.M. and I haven't even gone to bed yet!

I can proudly say I have a new story, complete even, second draft and maybe best of all, I like it!

Yesterday, I had planned to pick back up a short story I'd been working on earlier this month/late last fall. You know, the one I was struggling with before I decided to go all 'speculativation'(tm) on it, and yes, the same one that got shelved when that weird snowfall last week hit me in the forehead with a brilliant new story idea. Well, the brilliant new story idea has been written, rewritten, critiqued to death by my significant other and rewritten some more. It's been finished for all of two three days and that means it's time to jump back on the other one.

Except that a dead cat (not one of ours), an unexpected drive in the snow and hours spent being all blubbery and teary-eyed brought the end of that kind of thinking. No worries. Jump back on the wagon tomorrow. I even printed out a fresh copy of the story last night so I could get a jump start on it today.

A killer headache derailed me from nearly the start. I'm sure the pounding construction going on next door at the new rental house had nothing little to do with it.

After six hours and five aspirins, I'm finally looking at that short piece and I want to rip it to shreds, literally. The beginning sounds all wrong because I think I edited it to death. I like how the second scene reads but it has nothing to do with the point of the story and I still don't have an ending so I think it's safe to say I don't have a point either. I think I might actually hate this piece; sad because I had such great hopes for it.

What follows then is telling myself to calm down, read it with fresh, non-head-achy eyes tomorrow. I know I promised myself six short stories (minimum) and completion of The Car Novel this year and it's only going on February and I don't have to have this thing done by tomorrow. But I know how I can get -- a little relaxation here, a whole lot of game playing there, the shiny-ness of the new iTouch calls me away from reading and before I know it, it'll be July and I'll be freaking out not so much because I'll only have five months left to do all this writing but because I'll have to have come up with an idea for NaNoWriMo 2008 too. Basically, I can't give myself a break, now or later.

See how my mind works? Yup, clear as mud I'll bet.

More notes to self:  

#235 -  Remember that one day last year when you decided not get all anal retentive about properly filing all your SCWC stuff in one place?  Well you finally found all that stuff, didn't you?  Okay then, now get over yourself.

#236 - Work on toughening that skin.

#237 - Remember it's a long process.

#238 - Celebrate the completion of the first short of 2008 now.  If not, come critique day you'll wish you had.

#239 - Stop trying to be helpful.  It usually isn't wanted.

#240 - Work on toughening that skin.  Again.

#241 - And finally, if you think you're going to have one of <i>those</i> days, spare the world and stay in bed.

 Note to self:  Plying my worst critic with fine wine will assure the praise I'm looking for.

Note to self #2:  If I want to keep living in denial, keep the wine flowing.

Today, I rewrote my most current short story.  The critique comes later, after the real job gets home.  Other accomplishments this week include (but are not limited to):

Wrote a complete short story (approximate word count 1,650 words).  Next WotF submission?  Maybe.
Met with the landscape lighting guy in 28 degree F. weather.
Cleared the walkways of dead, frozen birds.
Downloaded photos from the cameras.
Wrote up a new bio.
Read three chapters (and skimmed five others) for tomorrow night's INK meeting.
Went grocery shopping.
Stayed out of the way while Steve made dinner.
Vacuumed twice.
Took care of an ignored cat for a week.
Tried again unsuccessfully to download an update for the iTouch.

I should be writing. No, correct that, I need to be writing but instead I'm lamenting the latest critique from my significant other on the re-write of a story I read at OryCon last month. He hates it. No, correct that, he doesn't hate it; he says, "It's better" and my ears hear his voice trail off at the end of "better" as though he's a flat tire and just now ran out of air.

Of course, he doesn't really sound this way but that is what my ears hear and my heart feels. I ought to just forget what he says because since when do family relatives know doodly-squat about writing anyway.

Let's not mention he's a writer too...

But if I write it to please him, I ought to just give him the story and let him write it because it surely won't be mine and sure as hell won't sound like me.

Ever feel like going back to the original version of the story and calling it good regardless of if it ever sells or not? Would shelving this story be such a crime? I think I need to move on.

My cold is finally moving out. Fear my Neti pot, you dasterdly cold! But really, if I’m going to get to lie around in bed for days on end, I really need to learn to enjoy the time away from responsibilities. Steve kept the house emaculate despite a rough work week. Oh why not say it outright, it’s been a rough work year for him. I’m amazed at what he’s accomplished.

INK is getting together here Saturday evening and hopefully, our first speaker, local author Jay Lake, will be joining us. In the SF/F/Speculative Fiction world, he’s a pretty big celebrity around these parts and a hoot to listen to. Selfishly, I’ve wanted to sit and talk to him about his various writing processes for about a year, and I really missed hearing him at any real length at OryCon. But if I don’t get my fill here, maybe I will at RadCon in February or maybe at Norwescon in Seattle in March. So many cons, so much writing I have to catch up on.

I finally got through the current Apex Digest and am wrapping up the last of Matheson’s ‘I am Legend’ anthology. I put Palahniuk’s ‘Rant’ back on the shelf for after the first of the year after reading the first couple of chapters. Being sick for ten days means readjusting my reading schedule. Between tonight and Saturday, I hope to finish off yet another short anthology, finish up the rewrites of ‘Bumblebee’ and ‘Convention #482′ and perhaps use a light hand in the first rewrite of ‘Feeders’ before diving back into Follett’s ‘Pillars of the Earth’ (a personal favorite) before I tackle his follow up ‘World Without End.’ If I’m good and I stick to it, I ought to be back to reading short story anthologies by mid-to-late January and resubmitting my rewritten shorts to fresh markets. After that, I’ve got a minimum of six new ones to create in 2008. 2008 is going to be a fun year!

*Note to self: Move 'The Terror' up in reading que.

I haven’t started working on those new short ideas I came up with over last weekend. I’ve been working on rewriting my last two finished shorts, numbers 3 and 4. And I presented short number 2 to my writing group (INK) for critique. Got some good ideas on what that one’s missing and as soon as I’m finished with numbers 3 and 4, I’ll jump right on a rewrite for number 2.

Confused yet? Just wait until I’ve got a dozen or more under my belt. Hopefully, a couple of these will be published or soon-to-be and I can start referring to them by title.

INK group meeting went well. I was impressed with Ris’ script from June’s Script Frenzy competition and I got a copy of Kami’s nonfiction piece to critique at the next meeting. I sent them both a copy of short number 3; my permission piece, and have already gotten back a lengthy critique and sent back a second rewrite.

And July isn’t even over yet. I’m still on target. As if I had any doubt.

Tomorrow I’ll begin rewrite of short number 2. Tonight, however, I think I’m going to take this voice I used so heavily in shorts 3 and 4 and begin short number 5. It’s just screaming to get out on paper.