Although HTRYN Lesson 14 has arrived, I haven't yet finished assignment 13, so there will be a hiatus in my progress reports for a while. In the meantime...
I finally got around to writing another short story. This one is for an anthology titled "Scheherazade's Facade", and is set in the world I am developing for my Dreamwalkers novel. I outlined it during the Christmas break, but what with HTRYN and my promotion at work, I had put off working on it. I did make a half-hearted attempt at the beginning of January, but only managed about 600 words before getting sidetracked by other stuff :(
This week I realised that if I let the February 28 submission deadline pass without sending anything in, I'd really regret it. Besides, there was that little red icon nagging me every time I started OmniFocus...
So on Saturday morning I knuckled down to work. I skipped over the scene I'd been struggling with, and started into the story at the point where everything starts going pear-shaped for the protagonist. I can't say the words exactly flew from my fingers, but by lunchtime on Sunday I had a 4500-word draft that I liked.
After that it was just a matter of polishing it, writing a cover letter and pushing the big scary 'Send' button. There was no time to submit this one for critique, so I'm less confident of this one knocking the editor's socks off. But at least I did it.
Deadlines. Motivation in a bottle.
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