So, the weekend's over and here we all are, back at work (at least, those of us who do work--those who don't, you're probably having a better time).

The weekend was kind of semi-productive. I received my galley proofs for my story "Crab Apple", which is due to be published in Realms of Fantasy in the October issue (which means it comes out in August, I think), so I went through those and tried not to think "If I just rewrote this part, it would be so much better..."

I also managed to finish the short story I had challenged myself to finish. At the end I felt it was a bit of a nothing story. Nice imagery and nice writing, but still a bit of a vacuum, nonetheless. I think that can sometimes be the way stories turn out when you force yourself to finish them before they are really ready to be done. You can't always layer in everything you want, because of the artificial deadline. Some of my Clarion West stories back in 2001 suffered from that. Of course, this might just be the general despondancy about a story that I tend to feel just after I've finished it. (Wasn't this supposed to be the greatest story ever written? Wasn't it going to win the Nebula and the Hugo? What is this crap that ended up on the paper?)

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This week's challenge will, I think, not involve a new short story. This time, I'm going to finish revising the current chapter of the novel (chapter 2). I've got one scene to write for that, maybe a couple of thousand words. Then I'm going to get at least half way through chapter 3. As I progress, the plot is going to diverge more and more from the original version of the novel. Add to that the fact that I'm going to be chopping around the events, and I think a couple of days will just be on plotting out chapter 3. Finally, I've got almost all of my critiques back for a recent short story, "Uncle Vernon's Lie". I need to a first pass through on that story.

All of that should make for a challenging challenge. The best kind.

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We went to a birthday party on Saturday, for a 2-year-old. It was good fun, but we ended up staying up too late, so we knackered all Sunday. Luckily, our new writing routine allowed us to sleep in this morning, so I'm at least functioning today, in a very abstract way.

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Another weekend, another English sporting disaster. In short order we've been pummelled at football (soccer), rugby, and cricket. Tim Henman is playing at Wimbledon in a few hours, so we should be able to lose there too.

Is there any croquet this week? We need to win something.