First review of YAWT went well and I immediately rewrote several passages twice before the end of the evening, more importantly, before the man's eyes began to droop. I'll give it a day of rest before rereading it again to make certain tenses and feel are good to go.

Still hunting for a title and I think it's safe to say this one is going to get a 'fun' title. Topping the list this morning, before coffee consumption, is "Utah Pete Hates Dogs."

Yeah, well, guess I ought to hit that coffee pot, huh?

Now I've gone and done it. Written myself into a corner all because I don't understand math and don't want to chain my short story characters to known laws of physics. Basically, I've written a dead story, a stillborn not completely formed, never to be.

Dang.

No doubt I'll try to find a way to salvage it, steer it away from the math and physics aspects so as to not insult anyone else with my utter and complete lack of understanding of either. Or I'll pluck out the two characters and drop them into something new, something different that doesn't involve the sciences. It's a shame really because after countless hours of science-y and physics-laden research including but not limited to Corona Discharges, Azimuths, Geomagnetic Pole Reversal, Statites, Spherules, Dyson Shells, Solar Sails, Telsa Coils, Magnetometer, Nanotechnologry, and Electromagnetic Ions, I thought I might have been onto something. I'll only be discouraged momentarily. No time to sit and whine about it.

But hey! We got that new and improved toilet installed.

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Someone told me not so long ago that a writer, particularly an unpublished short story writer should never divulge what he/she was working on in the off chance an editor just happened to be surfing the 'nets and have the finished MS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.

My first post from my shiny, sexy, lovebud of joy new laptop and the learning curve is annoying. I lose patience with myself too often. But the thing feels so damned good in my hands and on my lap, I'll make do. The monitor is a 15 inch because I'm old and get cranky if I can't see well. Actually, that's a big fat excuse. I can see fairly well. I just like wide screen stuff and wanted something that I really wanted this time around. I hate compromising worse than anything and have spent most of my entire life doing just that. Not today.

Yesterday, while using a different computer, definitely not a Mac computer, I worked on incorporating the notes I made while at Fireside Cafe for my current short WIP. Steve's back from his business trip and I've been letting him get back into the swing of things here before thrusting the latest revision under his nose for his feedback.

That WIP is coming along but very slowly. I'm nearing the place where I can't see what lies ahead, a scary place sometimes, sometimes not. If I really like how a story is going, I background process possible endings and insomnia fills in the rest. Haven't had either happen yet so I know I'm still far away from the end. No worries. It'll come.

Last week, while I was home alone, I caught a documentary on the Independent Film Channel that rattled me a bit. "The Bridge" is about Golden Gate Bridge suicide jumpers and yes, there is footage of numerous jumps. That wasn't what got to me. It was all the things included in the documentary that are in a short story I wrote late last year, before I ever knew this film and most of that information existed. After Steve saw "The Bridge" he said I got much of the information right because I have a good perception of how things can go, and I guess I'll take that as a compliment.

I don't mind when the planets seem to align and I find clues, hints, and arrows pointing me in the right direction whist in the midst of writing something. It happens frequently enough that I don't really think of it anymore. But to see something that contained so many elements I wrote about, never having been to the Golden Gate Bridge, never reading anything before about suicide, not even thinking of my short piece as a story about suicide before, was eerie. The worst part is knowing I'll never be able to convince a soul that I wrote my piece without seeing this documentary or the New York Times story that inspired the documentary beforehand. Yet that is completely true.

But it's not all about me. My character in the story decides in the end to sell his place and move and if I lived where he did in real life, I probably would too. I guess if someone lived in a high dollar condo overlooking the bridge and San Francisco Bay, you'd get used to seeing someone jump every two weeks. It'd be creepy though.

I must have needed some away time from my current WIP even though that away time seemed to be sucking my will to continue with it. For as much as I hated the story yesterday, a little chop here, a little revision there and I'm back to kind of liking it.

Still, it's going to be a long short story, something I'm not entirely comfortable with. I like the short and sweet, hit them before hard before they realize what a load of crap it may be, kind of story. Two thousand words, maybe three at the most. This one might end up around seventy-five hundred. It's also requiring lots of explanation and from everything I've read, that's usually not good. Still again, when I employ many of the tricks I see in other speculative fiction works, I leave my main critic wondering what the hell's going on.

I'm not going to worry about that just now. Just write the damned story. That's where my head is at. A thousand words today. They say every writer either hates their work or they love it. Today, I definitely love it.

I'm been working on a particular short story for oh, a month or so now, picking it back up to peck at, throwing it back down when Steve points out a negative though very valid flaw in it. I've vowed to complete the thing by the end of this month and really, I know the characters and the main topic like I know my own face in the mirror so what could possibility be the hold up? Just write the damned story, right?

Funny how I'm always startled by my image in a mirror. You see, I've got reverse anorexia. I think I'm much thinner than I really am. I'll look up and see myself and go, "Yikes! Who's that fat woman?" It's just me and yes, it's a real condition...like this story, I thought it would be one thing but turned out to be something completely different.

To make matters worse, or perhaps for the better, I've straying into the dark side.

Yikes! Who's suddenly writing speculative fiction?

*slowly raises hand

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.