Dark Glass

I didn't get any submissions out yesterday, but I had a pretty good writing day nonetheless. I've been working on my story for the Dark Glass anthology, and added about 1700 words, getting me up to nearly 2500 words. Feels good to do a little actual writing. I've got a pretty busy day ahead of me tomorrow--Besides work, I have to make a batch of meatballs for a pitch-in at my night job, I need to renew my driver's license (expired nearly 3 weeks now), and I have to pick up my new glasses which just came in. But I may still have a little time to work on my story and maybe finish it up. I hope so--I'm really excited about it. That's the best writing, when it's fun and exciting.

I also worked on a couple haiku. Wrote two, edited a few others, trying to perfect them. It's true that in a short story or even a book, every word is important, but it's even more true in a poem where you may only have 10-15 words to tell your story. Each one has to be loaded with meaning.

I'm hashing out a rough outline for my Devil's Food story as well. I believe the guidelines state there needs to be the peril of being eaten in the story. The hard part for me is going to be keeping the peril in there. We'll see what I can come up with.

I don't normally outline, but I never would have completed even one draft of my novel The Dead Gods if I hadn't outlined to some extent. When I do decide to outline, it's just a basic point-by-point outline, one quick line with what happens in the scene. For my book, I wrote out a synopsis of the plot first, then "outlined" twenty or so scenes, that way I had some flexbility--if I changed my direction, I wouldn't have to reoutline the whole thing. It worked out pretty well for me.