Winter vacation is over and today I head back to work, both my day and night jobs. I was up just after 5am and headed into my office to begin work on the new story, “Rescue”. I didn’t do any actual writing this morning. Instead, I spent my time reading the preface and first few chapters of Part 1 of my NaNoWriMo novel, upon which the story will be based. Overall, I thought what I had was very good, although it needs to be tightened up somehow. That will be the tricky part, I think. The first chapter that introduces the problem of the story is more than 2,000 words and needs to be cut substantially if it is to work as the first part of a shorter piece. I should finish my reading of the story by the middle of the week, I suspect, and then I can start on the rewrite. What I’m looking for (besides places to tighten things up) is another element that will strengthen the story but also limit its scope. I’m hoping to come up with that as I read through what I wrote in November.

I also head back to the day job this morning. I’ve been off for nearly 2 weeks and it is amazing how quickly I can get used to not going into the office. I have a baker’s dozen worth of projects underway or starting up and need to figure out where I left off, figure out what needs to get done right away versus what can wait, to say nothing of 2 weeks worth of email to go through. Should make for an interesting day.