Had a nice day getting caught up on the various writing tasks I’d wanted to get done today, and it was especially nice because these were things I’d been wanting to finish up for a while. The first was putting the finishing touches on my short story “Back in the Old Neighborhood,” thanks to the excellent comments from Scott, Jason, and Alex (those Cup-a-Pros!) and Jay as well. Thanks doods. I feel really good about this one.

I also finally got around to revising the snot out of “Redemption, Drawing Near,” which was critiqued in our first meeting of the local writers group back in October. I also had tremendous feedback on the story from fellow Clarion mate Sarah, as well as all the other usual suspects, including Jim and a couple other folks I roped into reading my stuff.

After moving almost all of the revised sections from the stories back into the Wannoshay novel, I feel like I’m ready to dive back into the last few chapters of that sucker. I’m still pulling together my overall outline that lists a summary of what happens in each chapter, along with who’s the point of view character and what day or days the chapter covers, just to keep everything consistent. It’s tedious work, but it’s paying off.

And now Lizzie and I are going to check out the xmas lights in the area and see if we can't score a copy of "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" somewhere. And get Pumpking some cat food -- he's been a realy bi-otch since we started giving him diet food! Later!

Now Playing:
"Midnight Radio," Big Head Todd & the Monsters

Now Reading:
Bag of Bones, Stephen King

Stories out to Publishers:
19

Today's Words:
oh heck, let's say 500

Novel Words:
144,000

Today's Quote:
As the service progressed, Joshua let himself get lost in the comforting words and familiar actions of the Mass. Today’s reading was from the Gospel according to Luke, the twenty-first verse: “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come.” As the reading continued, Joshua’s throat tightened up on him. “Your redemption is drawing near,” the verse had ended. Joshua could never decide if those words were a promise or a threat.