Thursday, July 9, 2009

In First Gear

I outlined a new short story yesterday. I'm targeting Issue #3 of Emerald Tales. The outline stands at nearly 1500 words so getting it all in under the 4K mark may be difficult.

Then two things occurred yesterday to stop me from working last night.

First, I left my USB key at work. All of my work is on that little flash drive. I back it up to my work PC and to my home laptop, but I do all my work directly from it. Leaving it plugged into my work PC left me hanging. I couldn't work on editing anything and I couldn't send out Spoilt Rotten. I couldn't work on my new outline either.

Second, the first test of The Ashes series began last night. Most of you won't be interested, but I love cricket, and for others like me, this is the ultimate contest between traditional rivals which has been going on for 127 years. I'm guessing there isn't many other sporting rivalries anywhere in the world which have been going that long. Yes, test cricket can be boring, but for a passionate player of the sport, and a patriotic Aussie to boot, I can waste days watching it.

In the end, I checked my email a couple of times (which was very quiet), flicked through ME2 again, watched the cricket, and did no writing.

Tomorrow I have a day off from my normal job. Whatever I don't get done today (editing, finding a market, working on new outline) will be done tomorrow. I also need to continue my reading and finish a project with my youngest (can't really call her my little one anymore).

So far today I've written up the review of Darkly Dreaming Dexter, the first book in the Dexter Omnibus so I can move onto the second book with a clear conscience. Now - to find a market for SR.

**Update**

I can't do anything with Spoilt Rotten until I get home. I have a strange inclining that I sent it out and didn't update my spread sheet - need to check. It turned out that Digging Up The Past wasn't currently out at market either so I've found somewhere for that. At 6170 words, it's a slightly more difficult piece to find a home for.

If SR has gone out as I suspect, then all of my currently completed pieces are in the market place awaiting an editors stomp...er...stamp of approval.

My new piece is well outlined so it can wait a week or three before I do anything further on it (although chances are I'll play with it well before then - do shorts count as WIP Wednesday?) which leaves me with just reading.

And waiting....

Isn't this writing game just mega fun?

B

***Updating the update***

Spoilt Rotten had not been resubbed anywhere - it has now. I now have all of my current batch of short stories out in the wild. New goals for tomorrow:

To read the second book in the Dexter Omnibus and to read Issue 7 of NT.

And wait for those acceptances to roll in ;c)

Back to the cricket...

7 comments:

  1. Ooh, good luck with Emerald Tales.

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  2. A good game of cricket (or football in my case) can upend perfectly good intentions to write for me as well. Okay, so I don't watch cricket because they don't show it on ESPN around here. Good luck with the subs and your story for Emerald Tales.

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  3. The one time I left my writing notebook at work (with my current WIP half-written in it), I felt completely incapable of doing anything. I can't imagine not having the jump drive where I back up my writing--of course, that wouldn't happen since I back up to two of them. Then again, I'm perfectly capable of misplacing two things rather than one.

    Good luck with the submissions!

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  4. I'm with Jamie-- a good football game is good for the brain. I'd probably watch loads of cricket if we had it on here, since my husband is obsessed. (When we go to India, at least half our time there is spent just watching cricket. Yes, also test cricket. I flew around the effing world to watch cricket on ESPN. Awesome.)

    I think short works should count if they're in progress, right? Right! Good luck with the subs.

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  5. Nothing more infuriating than leaving the thumb drive in the work computer - have done that before myself. Fingers crossed for the subs.

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  6. At least you have them saved safely somewhere! I tend to forget to back-up for weeks on end.

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  7. Katey - paint me jealous.

    Nat - did I say I backed them up on a regular basis...

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