I thought it about time to post another entry, lest anyone think I was neglecting the journal ;)

Last week I submitted the new story and began work on another one. Unfortunately progress has been extremely slow and I've done very little on it so far. I have a broad idea of where to take it, as well as a possible ending, but the guts of it seems very nebulous and I'm having a hard time coming up with a compelling plot. I'm sure I'll think of something :) I also neglected to mention another submission made in late January of a story I wrote last year. I'm still waiting to hear back on that one (that's for an anthology).

Over a couple of weekdays last week I tried an experiment that seems to work well for many people, and it looks promising for me, too: I got up as soon as the alarm went off at 6am and managed to get some writing done! Granted, that's not terribly early but I'm still staying up late working on my writing and/or reading. Unfortunately I don't have a clear idea of where the current story is going, so progress was slower than it otherwise would've been. We shall see how it goes when the experiment continues this week :)

-----<>-----

This weekend was pretty quiet. We mostly stayed at home, although we did get a chance to go out to dinner at a Mexican place on Saturday, followed by book browsing at B&N. I was checking out the new Gardner Dozois SF anthology, Best of the Best, among other things. They only had the paperback edition and I was after the hardcover, so we left empty-handed.

We finally put up the wood blinds in the computer room after having the box sitting in the hallway for nearly 2 weeks. They look quite schnazzy! Now all that's left as far as window-coverings is to hang the curtains in the living room, and find something suitable for the kitchen. Today we hung up a lot of pictures around the house and worked on the basement bedroom, unpacking boxes and moving stuff into storage areas.

Yesterday morning I booked the hotel and everything for the 2005 Wiscon SF convention held over the Memorial Day long weekend. I'm looking forward to catching up with all the writer types again, attending panels, and scouring the dealer's room, as well as sampling the cuisine around Madison. Carrie is coming along again this year, so hopefully she won't be too bored (she managed okay last year).

Writing-wise I didn't get anything done other than a critique for the crit group. I had my head buried in Locus mags for several hours in a cunning attempt at procrastination. That worked rather well, I might add. I'll see if I can scratch out a few notes for the new story in the next couple of hours....

2005 Stats:

2005 Word count:	6,978
Stories written:	1
Total submissions:	3
Total acceptances:	0
Total rejections:	2
Waiting for response:	2
Books read:	3
Fiction Mags/Chapbooks read:	5
Audiobooks:	4

What I'm Reading:
The Troika, Stepan Chapman
The Shining Ones and Other Stories, Arthur C. Clarke (audiobook)
Locus 2004 issues: October, November, December (I'm still waaay behind)