Showing, rather than telling
First attempt:
Lyssa was miserable. First, Sheba kept her up all night with yowling, then she was up all night with Sheba at the vet’s, and then when she finally managed to get a full night’s sleep, she was plagued with so many nightmares that she wondered if she would have been better off getting no sleep at all.
Second pass:
“You look like hell, Lyss.”
Lyssa looked up at the voice to see Roberta standing at the side of her desk. She smiled weakly up at the other woman. “I feel like hell. I finally get a full night of sleep, and the nightmares were so bad I think I might have been better off staying up again.”
“Sheba?”
Lyssa shook her head. “Monsters. Did I tell you about the guy who showed up at lunch yesterday?”
***
Anyway, that’s what I’m up to. I hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving (if you celebrate) and will have a very nice weekend. 
It’s ok…
It’s ok for first drafts to suck.
It’s ok for first drafts to suck.
It’s ok for first drafts to suck.
That’s what first drafts are *for,* right?
Progress!
I’ve got nearly 4,000 words of a new short story written, and I’m really happy with how both it and the world/culture it takes place in are shaping up!
Here’s hoping I can keep this up, and maybe even finish a draft this weekend.
Tomorrow, though, we’re going to go see The Dark Knight Rises! There’ll be six of us going, so whether it’s amazing and incredible and lives up to all expectations, or disappointing beyond belief, we should have a good time. (I’m really hoping for amazing and incredible, though!)
Deciding… sort of
So, my current plan is to go back to writing a story every week, but much less strictly than with the old story a week challenge. If I need to take a week off, I will, and I won’t be posting them here, at least not immediately. I’ll also be writing them with the intent of publishing them, either singly or as collections – but not until I think they’re ready.
It worked well with Refuge, so I’m going to see if I can do some more “episodic narratives,” as John Scalzi calls it.
First off, I’ve finally got an actual story for my not-cats! I’ve been wanting to write one for ages.
So what will you be seeing here? Well, updates like this one, and I’ll also try to post links to things I find cool or inspiring at least once a week. Whenever I publish a collection, I’m also planning to post the first story here as a sample.
Of course, as always, I may change my mind somewhere along the way and start working on something else. But I think this is a good plan for now.
© 2010 Catherine Wechsler, used with permission.
