This morning was a challenge. Yesterday, spurred on by our apparent lack of writing progress in recent weeks and reading Ben Rosenbaum's journal, we decided that our habit of staying in bed to the ridiculous hour of 7:30 am was going to have to change. So, duly, we set the alarm for 6:15 and got up and went in to the city and wrote in a coffee shop for an hour before work. It was reasonably successful. We both got stuff done, even though we were tired, and it was a nice start to the day. Today, however... So, we got to bed at about 10:45 last night, which should have given us just about enough sleep (ideally, we're both 8-hours-a-night people). Only I couldn't get to sleep. Not at all. My mind was whirring through irrelevancies for at least two hours. I tried counting sheep. I had them jumping over gates. Some of them were doing somersaults. Others were taking run-ups and landing in clouds of dust. No sleep though.

Eventually, of course, I must of slept because I woke up about half an hour before the alarm with a splitting tiredness-headache. We almost didn't get up. But we did. We shuffled about like zombies. Nika went back to bed, in defiance of the proscribed order. In the end, we made it into town, even earlier than yesterday, and wrote. Tomorrow should be interesting.

#

I keep meaning to do a review of my year in writing, but I always forget to do it when I've got my records with me. I'll give it a go and edit it later on when I've got the records to hand:

2003 Summary
Sold: 3 short stories.
Saw published: 2 short stories: "Finisterre" in The Third Alternative and "Five Things of Beauty" in Strange Horizons.
Wrote: 3 short stories and completed 2 novels, one for adults, one for children.

That's all. Not so spectacular on the short story front. Hopefully I'll manage more this year.