1. Dishes
2. Laundry STARTED. This may take a while…
3. What’s with the cat fountain? (Answer for the curious: fur in the pump. Ick.)
4. Ahem — story for Baen. Rly.
Well, so, the short story. The short story stands at just about 700 words. It doesn’t have a title yet, and it took its time getting here. Days getting here.
I sat on the couch, coon cat to the left of me, coon cat to the right of me, pen and paper on my lap. I glared at that pad of paper, which is the time-honored process by which words, characters, and plots are conjured.
I sketched out five concepts — not the way I like to do things; I prefer to noodle around in my head until somebody comes along and tells me a story. However, I don’t always get my druthers, and there’s a deadline involved, which is, in the way of deadlines, intricately and ineluctably entwined with manymany other deadlines, so forward motion was necessary, realsoonnow.
As with so many other things, feeling under the gun is not the best way to get things done, and I was just about to throw in the towel, admit I’d forgotten how to write and go drown my sorrows in a re-re-re-re-&c-viewing of Earth Girls Are Easy, when. . .
Niku showed up, late, and full of himself. I have a feeling that these may be defining traits. In any case, I was very pleased to see him, and immediately opened a file, writing 700 words in, like, 20 minutes, so I guess I haven’t forgotten how to write, after all.
What a difference a character makes. . .