Sunday, 16 November 2003

Done! I've finished a draft of my zeppelin story. It came in at 6500 words.

It's rougher than my usual first draft; I have quite a bit of polishing to do. But it's a finished story. I hope it's a rousing adventure, but I'm a bit too close to it to judge.

I'll give it a once-over tomorrow, then get copies to my writing group and my brother. Jackie's mom has asked to read it too. I'll see what they think of it before doing much working on it besides a quick polish.

I've got two other stories I'm really ready to work on. First, there was a story I was very close to finishing when I stopped working on it to work on the zeppelin story. I haven't looked at it in weeks, but I think there might only be a couple days of work to finish it. I'll do that next. After that, I've got another story that I've been struggling with for years but finally realized how to fix. That'll come after.

That will about clear the decks of works in progress. There are a few other stories that I've had critiqued and still haven't figured out just what to do with. I guess I'll review those.

I'm also thinking again of working on a novel. Winter seems like the right time to work on a novel, I think. I'm afraid to think about it too much, for fear that it'll distract me from these two unfinished stories I want to take care of next. After that, though, I'll start letting novel ideas percolate.

I ran 2.5 miles today. It was in the 50s, warm enough to run in shorts. Oh, and I ordered one of these--a stopwatch, heart-rate monitor, and GPS system that can keep track of how far and how fast I run. I'm mostly getting it for the speed and distance tracking. I find it frustrating not to know how far I'm running. I figure having one of these might motivate me to run on several cold winter days that I'd otherwise stay inside. I can't use it sitting around the house.