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In process -- August 2011

First Draft


“Fairfax”. Started month with about 14000 words (48 handwritten pages plus the two flash fics). Now I have about 22,000 I think.

Editing

"The Rabbits". (short story) Draft 6 came in just shy of 7000 words (having gained 500), so I put it on OWW in two parts for the August Crit marathon.

“Chickpea”. (short story) I’d typed this (it came in just shy of 4000 words) back in July. I did a second draft to make the ending consistent with the beginning, and then wrote in a new character and added a proper ending, because it didn’t have one.

“Fairfax”. Typed Chapter 3. Something weird happened while I was doing this. I started to feel guilty that I was spending all my time writing, and none on “having a life”. It was a terrible moment.

The challenges

“Flea Market Finds”. As has become my pattern, I wrote the 1st draft on Monday (a holiday), then typed it up on Tuesday, edited Wednesday and Thursday and posted in the wee hours.

“Witch Trial”. Since I was going to Florida Wednesday, I wrote the first draft on Sunday, then typed it Monday. It came out at 2400 words. I did a second draft and printed it again Tuesday. Then, I printed it and carried it to Florida, where I did two editing passes on the same draft to get it under 1000 words. I was pretty happy with this one, which tells backstory for Fairfax.

“The Grand Plan”. I wrote this for the Crossed Genres II challenge, but I was at the cottage (vacation) so I never typed it up or edited it or submitted it. Maybe I’ll do something with it later.

“Amelia Earhart is Completely Sane”. First draft Monday, about 1600 words. Typed it up Tuesday, then edited it Wednesday and Thursday.

Being reviewed
“Karate Zombies”. My friend who read it last month asked for it back so he could comment on it directly.
“Ian’s Dad’s Ashes”. Eight crits now, it needs to come off the 'shop and have something done with it.
“The Rabbits”. I wanted to have some things up for the Crit Marathon, so I pulled this one together. I posted it in two parts, because at just shy of 7000 words, I thought it might not get readers if I asked for them to do it in one go. This story makes me nervous – to me it has contentious subject matter. So when I got a positive crit that didn’t seem to agree with me as to what the story was about, I was confused.

Knitting
Morrigan (No Sheep for You/Frangipani). Second sleeve, 16 rows from the armscye.
Skew socks (Knitty/some self-striping thing). Done.
Chasing Snakes socks (knitty/some divine merino in a color called Lead). First done.
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