La Vie Boheme

Is this thing on?

Well hell. Look at this. I have a writing journal. It's been a long year of not very much writing at all, despite my best intentions after WorldCon. Now it's the week after WisCon, and I'm fired up once again, in part due to the panels, and in a larger part due to the writers' workshop I attended there with the first chapter of The Exile's Daughter. I have a vague notion of where to start rewriting the beast now, go me.

Also helping re-light the fire under my ass was the Commie Pinko 48 Hour Short Story Contest sponsored on Hanne Blank's livejournal. I participated, wrote a story over a weekend, and received an honorable mention for it. I'm still fond of the story, and currently have it awaiting critiques on OWW.

On a whim, I rearranged and reorganized my entire office and succeeded in creating a workspace that feels "right". Last night was my first night actually working there, and I accomplished a few things:

• Joined OWW, posted "Golden Boy", and critiqued a story
• Reread "Sic Transit Gloria" and "An Eye For an Eye"
• Found a market for "Sic Transit" and sent it out
• Reluctantly trunked "An Eye For an Eye" (more on that)
• Found the first market for "Golden Boy", as soon as it's ready.

So... the trunking. Apparently during this long non-writing period, my skills have been creeping along without me (quite possibly due to all the reading I've been doing), because "Eye for an Eye" is just not as good as I remembered it being. There's some good stuff there, but as a whole, it's not quite right, and I don't think it's worth fixing. The scenes that are good just don't seem to belong to that story. The good news is, though, I think I can cannibalize the good parts for False Light, whenever I get around to writing it.

I think this weekend I'm going to try and do some character work on Exile (Alex, talk to me, damn you) and maybe, if I'm lucky, finish the untitled story I've been working on for ages.

God, it feels good to be thinking of work again.