My to-do list was filling up with short stories that were in need of markets, so this weekend I got several of them either out the door again or ready to go. One will go out this Friday to a market whose reading period opens then. Another is targeted at a specific market, but I already have a story in submission there, so I will wait to hear the outcome of that submission before sending them another.
I heavily revamped two of these stories. One of them went from third person/past tense to first person/present, and I think it reads much better that way. It has an unreliable narrator, which didn’t work as well in third person, I discovered. The other story was one that I had incorporated into a novel that is now sitting on my agent’s desk. There were some problems with chronology in the original story (even though it had been accepted for publication as is for an anthology that ultimately cratered).
I also did some more work on a lengthy essay—very lengthy. Threatening to get out of control, in fact. My next task with it is going to be to trim about 15% of it, I think.
This weekend, I watched Burn Notice from last Thursday (another solid episode), Criminal Intent and Big Brother 10. I correctly predicted one of the two nominees, but the other one was a bit of a surprise. The guy had been acting like a pompous jerk, so he deserves to be knocked down a peg or two—or maybe out of the house altogether. I run hot and cold on Keesha. She’s obviously very immature and shallow, but for the most part she seems pleasant enough.
I’m getting near the end of The Hollower and the first couple of chapters of What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, a memoir by Haruki Murakami.
