Friday, 05 December 2003

Spent most of the evening working on the providence story, adding a bit of description and tightening up the prose. I'm pleased with it. Now I've sent it to the local critique group. Hopefully they'll be able to meet and critique it next weekend.

I didn't do the next thing I wanted to do this evening, which was to rough up a schedule of the next few things I wanted to work on.

I haven't felt the need for a schedule up to now. Since nobody is asking me for stories, nobody is pressing me to meet deadlines for them. I have my own ideas about certain anthologies that I'd like to write for, but they're really just whims and if I get a story ready for one and not another, or both, or neither, it's no big deal to anyone but me.

Now, though, I'm finding that my projects are pressing in on one another, competing for time and attention. I'm thinking that, if I can schedule them, maybe I will be able to put certain ones far enough out of my mind to work on the others.

Also, having the data and a process would mean that I could accurately estimate when a story would be done, which would make me much more comfortable with accepting story commissions, in that distant, yearned-for future where editors call me and ask for stories. Now, when there's no pressure, is the time to come up with the process and test it.

In almost three years worth of journal entries, I have captured a great deal of data about how much I can write in a day or a week. I also have some data (although probably not enough) about how well I can estimate the length of a story. Those two things together might be enough for me to produce useful schedules for my writing.

Cold and snowy. Winter is here.

There's a busy weekend ahead--cat to the vet (just a checkup), a movie with Jackie and her mom, the 5k race. Still, I'm planning on getting in some writing and some related tasks. I want to get at least one of the stories languishing on my hard drive off to a market.