Got the short story posted, or rather, the posting is underway.  First chapter went up yesterday and another will go up every week.  I've gotten a couple good reviews which is a relief.  Mostly I want to make sure what I write is readable...that readers stay in the story and aren't distracted by awkward phrasing or plot holes.  Even over at gayauthors the story won't draw a lot of readership but I'm glad I put it out there.  Now I can finally start something new.  I think I'll do a prompt response tomorrow and start outlining for the fantasy book on Thursday.

Instead of editing my short story yesterday, I ended up composing a response to a writing prompt.  I read the prompt in the morning and a partially formed story dropped into my head immediately.  I had a 2 hour bike ride planned and spent most of it thinking about the prompt and structuring the story in my head.  I worked it out in the afternoon, about 2 ½ hours of writing.  Not much editing.  Just did a read through and fixed a couple things, then ran spell check.  2200 words.  It’s not perfect and I was starting to go down the road to make it perfect, but I forced myself to go pencils down and hands in the air.  It was starting to become distracting and that’s not the point of writing prompts.  At least, I don’t think it is.  Anyway, I submitted it and since I’m new to the site where I posted it, am waiting to see if it’s approved.  I think I followed the submission guidelines.  They say, however, to keep the submissions a “reasonable length” without defining reasonable.  I define it as something that can be read under an hour.  2200 words should fit the bill for most people.  However,  it is significantly longer than most responses to prompts that I’ve read on the site.  Guess I’ll see how it goes and in any case, it was a fun exercise.  I feel guilty for abandoning my short story on a day when I had the time to turn it, but it was probably good for me to take a break.  I re-worked a major section of the short story on Saturday.  The troublesome part sounds good now.

Work has been c.r.a.z.y. lately.  But enough of that.  I managed to finish the first draft of my story.  (Fist pump air!).  I have begun the re-read, fact checking, and taking notes on where to edit and smooth things out.  On the fact checking I looked into a long held medical assumption and discovered, as one often does with assumptions, it was inaccurate.  Unfortunately, the error impacts a premise for Some of the protagonist's actions.  I really thought it would kill the story when I first discovered it, but by the evening I had a solution in place.  Very excited to be at this point in the crafting of my short story.  Wish I didn't need any sleep...or exercise.  If I could give up either of those I'd be writing whenever I'm not working.

I did it! Got Chapter 4 onto paper. I started rewriting this chapter 4 times. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come (e.g. chapter 5 will need 5 attempts, chapter 6 six attempts, etc.) I knew what needed to happen in this chapter. Knew that arc of thinking the characters had to undergo to move the story along, and pretty much had a good setting ready for the action to take place. Really struggled on where to enter the scene. Finally a figured out that I was coming in too early and letting the main character do too much thinking. Too much mulling over. But it took 4 attempts before I got it down satisfactorily. On a reread, the tempo of the narrative and dialogue seems pretty good. There are things to clean up but I can do that when I go in to edit.

On the plus side, I am pretty sure I know how the characters are going to get to The End. I say pretty sure because after I few days of knowing For Sure how they got there, I've started wondering if it's too corny. Too much of an <insert eye roll here> ending. It's a fairy tale so the wildly improbable can be pretty wild. Pretty improbable. I'll probably end it as planned and then maybe sit on it for awhile, see if anything better comes to mind.

I need more of these 3 day weekends.  Great progress on the short story.  Just have the conclusion left to write and then take it through a re-write process.  Also, key it into the computer.  Yes, after promising myself that I would never again write a story longhand, I simply found that for this story, the creativity wouldn't come at the computer.  It's a step backward for me but when it comes to writing backwards is better than a standstill.  Someday, I'll finish getting that novel out of the spiral notebooks and onto the computer.  I still go back and read it sometimes and it's worth fixing up and editing.  I need more of these 3 day weekends. 

I'm a couple thousand words in on my short story.  I estimate this will be about 10,000 words and these first 2,000 will need a serious rewrite.  I can already tell I'm going to want to enter the story at a different point which means a lot of this week's work will be cut. Would like to have a first draft by January 1 - it's possible.  Sounds like there won't be enough snow at the cabin for snow mobiling over Christmas weekend.  If that ends up being the case I will probably get a fair amount of writing done - all longhand.  Looking forward to being outside next weekend - winter in Idaho - whether it's snowmobiling or snowshoeing.  The slow cooker will be going all day.  Potatos in the wood burning stove.  I'll be grilling in the freezing cold at night but that just makes the food taste better.  Merry Christmas!

Christmas cards are signed, sealed and ready to drop in the mail tomorrow. Missing two addresses. Every year I seem to be hunting down addresses. I know people email them to me but I'm negligent in transferring them to my address book. Posted a response to the December writing prompt in Misfits. Sometimes, oftentimes, I don't feel I do justice to the ideas I have for stories. That's why I'm here. Practice. Getting the tone an substance of what's in my head to come out on paper is difficult.

Also managed to give feedback in my two classes. Have been trying out the morning pages from the Cameron class since NaNoWriMo finished. Not sold yet on their value but I'll give it 'til the end of the 3 part course before passing judgment. Still trying to develop the plots around my idea for a collection of short stories. Would be a major accomplishment if I could get a handful of them written by this time next year.

Feeling conflicted. I miss NaNoWriMo but I also am glad to have my workouts back on track. My triathlon goals are as important to me as writing and try as I might, I do not have time for both. Wishing I could survive on less sleep. I've tried that too...not a viable opton over time. As it stands I write a little and work out a little and am failing to do well in either of the activities.

Just finished my first NaNoWriMo attempt at 11:07pm on November 30.  I can't believe I made it.  That is one big mess of a story but I learned a lot about writing by undertaking the experience.  Next year, I'll be more prepared and I should get a better piece of work out of it.