Draft Two in the Can

Dec 23, 2009 Daily Writing, Short Stories

Hmmm…not sure about that title, but what the heck.

The second draft of “Life on Mars” is complete, taking two mornings rather than the one morning I had originally predicted. I’m sure it needs another few things, but I’ll let it sit a day or three and come back to it with fresher eyes.

But in the meantime, it’s onto another project.

It’s Raining Novelettes

Dec 21, 2009 Daily Writing, Short Stories

I’ve now diverted my work on this novel twice, both times to work on a short story idea. Both times I’ve been happy with the result, but somehow my short stories keep growing into novelettes. This last one is now titled “Life on Mars,” and runs something around 10.5K words. This is fine and all, but these danged 10K stories take twice as long to write as the 5K shorts I keep expecting to write. (Go figure).

I expect I’ll finish the second draft of LoM tomorrow AM. It probably needs another, of course. Three seems to be my norm, sometimes four. Well, okay, sometimes it takes five or six or, ahem, considerably more, but I’m working hard to ignore those situations.

My concern right now is that I have, yes, another idea for a short story wriggling around in my mind. With Christmas holidays coming along I’ll decide what to work on next in the next day or so, but I suppose I should consider the old idea that good things come in threes? Ya think?

A K Every Day

Dec 2, 2009 Daily Writing, Short Stories

LISTENING TO: Neil Young

I’m claiming another thousand words this morning, though honesty requires I state it’s probably a little shy. Damn you honesty!

Two primary movements remain to be told to complete the story. Still think the final draft will be done Friday, of course it helps that I’ll be off that day and able to focus more than my morning stint upon it.

I find first drafts fun because I can drift a bit and explore threads of ideas that come from wherever they come from. But I find second drafts are more enjoyable, and third drafts the most fun. I’m not sure why that is. I guess the second draft is when the characters become truly real to me (as a rule, anyway–the truth is that none of my stories ever feels the same as any other while in the creation stage, but I’m ignoring that truth or else I might start worrying about my own mental health). By the third draft I have stories pretty much where I think I want them.

At least that’s what I tell myself, anyway.

Regardless, I got about a thousand words today, and I’m happy with that.

One Title, Coming Up?

Dec 1, 2009 Daily Writing, Short Stories

This is a bit of an unusual story for me in that I don’t have a working title for it. Usually I have an idea what I want to call something I’m actively writing. But this one has just kind of grown organically.

But I got about a thousand words down this morning, and an inkling of the title boiled up. It’s not right. I can tell that. But it’s in the right ballpark.

Maybe tomorrow.