I completed a short story titled “Kagari” this weekend. Both Brigid (my daughter, for those of you who might be newish to me) and Lisa (wife) have read it and liked it. I mentioned it before as a story I’ve spent probably a quarter-million words on, so I’m happy to see it finally rounded into a solid form. Assuming all goes well, it’ll be off in the mail sometime later today.
I don’t usually use Brigid as a pre-reader, but she’s really pretty good at it. So I’ll have to see how much more of her time I can beg, borrow, or steal.
I also spent much of last week doing a big-picture review of one of my novels. I had marketed this one before, and it had received some commentary and interest, but it also seemed to have problems–meaning that I grew tired of it and no one immediately grabbed it and said “this is brilliant!” (though obviously it is!).
With some distance between me now and then, I think I see what was bogging it down. I made two major structural changes to it this weekend that provide focus where it needs to be. Having done this, I expect it needs another 5-10K words. I like it now, though, which feels good since I had kind of written that off as a training exercise.
So, between working on those to pieces, two trips to the health club, and cutting the grass, that was my weekend.
Yours?