Interesting Weekend

Tis the end of a long weekend here and the start of my last week as a 40 year old.

On Saturday I played cricket and tried to do things I shouldn't have--I am now paying for it with very sore muscles I should be able to use again without agony by Thursday. Sunday we had a working bee at the club and I again over did things a little. Today I didn't do a lot.

Tonight I started going through my stories to see where things are at. I found one story (Mobile)languishing past a query date so I went and checked the market only to find the online publication had died within the last week (Maguszine). I then went to query another one where I have had two accepted in the past, and found the website had died. The two accepted are due to come out in a publication this May so I suddenly panicked it was going to turn into a March deathday or something. I emailed the editor who lives in the UK. Miraculously she was online and checking her email. She assured me everything was still on track and she was unaware the website was down. Fingers crossed everything moves ahead as expected in that area. Those two stories are worth a descent payment in British Pounds, which becomes even better when the conversion rate comes in. I sent out a query to a third and final story which is at a publication I know isn't in trouble.

So I looked at my tracking spreadsheet. I now had an extra story to find a new market for and I still had Dreaming to finish. I had another idea for a new story Friday evening while out doing food shopping, so now I have two new ideas competing with each other inside my head to be the next short written. (Must write them down before anything else pops up and I forget everything.)

So I started writing the new ending for Dreaming tonight, got part way through and then stopped to catchup on my TV series - one of the only ones I watch at prime time during the week. Once I've finished up this post I'll be getting back to it.

I also got back my assessment for Module 1, assignment 2 - another B. I'm fast coming to the conclusion the short story does not translate well into a short script. I need to think flash fiction, as in 500 words or less, maybe even 350 or less, to make transition from one format to the other work. Or at least until I'm allowed to do more than 2-4 page scripts. I can't seem to think only in script form. Guess I'm just not built that way.

So this week I will be trying to:

Finish Dreaming and submit it.
Finish critiquing a story for a friend.
Finish reading RealmShift.
Finish Module 1, assignment 3.
Write the outlines of the two new short stories.

Notice there is nothing for Newland there. The novel work would normally go where the short story work is. If I do Newland, I won't finish Dreaming and I won't do anything on the two new stories. My deadline of the end of April looks like slipping well and truly into May. If I can't get it done by the end of May, then my readers won't have enough time to do the critiquing I need for the diploma due by the end of June. Not good.

Still, the above list is my wish list. If things work out right, I may get some done at work and then still have time to write some Newland. We'll see.

Time to get back to Dreaming.

Have a great week; hope you had a great weekend - I'll be checking my feeds tomorrow morning.

BT