After a very good week last week, this week was not so great. I’d written a total of 8 consecutive days between last week and this week, and then I stopped cold. Things at work and at home got too busy and I just couldn’t sustain the writing. It’s too bad, too, because I’m very close to finishing the epic fantasy story (which has now officially turned into an epic fantasy novelette, having surpassed the 7,500 word mark). My total for week 7 was 1,178 words, all in the first two days of the week. After that: nothing. I’m nearly 5 days (2,500 words) behind pace, with a year-to-date total of 23,038 words of new fiction.
I’ve started 5 stories this year. I’ve finished drafts of 2 of them, and a final draft of only one. I am likely going to spend this week (what time I can gather) completing the first draft of my fantasy story and then seeing if I can’t complete the third draft of the first story that I wrote this year. That story will need to go out for one more round of comments from beta-readers, as it has changed significantly based on the initial feedback I received. Once that final draft of that story is done, I’ll get it sent out and then I’ll turn to the second draft of the fantasy story.
Sometimes, writing can be tough. I see a lot of my writer friends getting acceptances to magazines and I find myself envious. I’ve still got one story out at the moment. It’s been out now for exactly four weeks. Whenever I have a story out, I take the “no news is good news” approach. It would be nice once I’m at the point where I have three or four stories out. I have a story that I’ve been struggling with for a long time, one that is specifically for Analog and it would be nice to overcome that hurdle and get that story written and submitted. That story has been looming over me like a challenge to overcome for some time now, and I think it will be psychologically important for me to nail that one. But I’ve got a few things in line ahead of it that need to be finished first.
I’d also love to crack Daily SF this year. I had a near miss with them late last year and I’ve got three or four story ideas that might work themselves into decent stories, but I just can’t find the time to get them written right now.
So, like I said, this week, I just want to finish the first draft of the epic fantasy story and make some progress on the third draft of the first science fiction story I wrote this year. Third drafts are a pretty rare thing for me when it comes to short stories.
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