Friday, 02 November 2001

I started work on a new story last night and wrote a bit more tonight. Not much progress yet--I'm still trying to figure out what it's actually about. I still have about five stories waiting for re-writes, and I still mean to get them all done, but I'm really feeling like I need to do some more new writing at this point.

That's just one of the many ways in which Clarion is very different from real life. At Clarion the goal is to get something ready to critique and everyone understands that the stories submitted aren't done. Each of the stories that I turned in could have been improved with another day or two of work. Now that I have another day or two, though, I find that it is sometimes hard to get things really done.

Stories that I work on for a long time sort of go stale. I'm not quite sure why. Partly, it may just be that I get bored with them if I work on them for too long. Another possibility is that sometimes the idea isn't as good as I thought it was, and that fact just becomes inarguably clear when I work on a story long enough.

The Champaign Urbana Spinners and Weavers Guild is having its annual show and sale. Jackie has some handspun yarn and some other fiber arts on sale there.