I finished the hand written draft of the first short story for this challenge. I don’t know if it will make sense to anyone who isn’t me, but I really like it. I will probably send it to a first reader or two to make sure that it makes sense.

It ended up being about 3500 words (assuming 6 pages = ~1000 words.) I figure the typed draft might end up being about 3800, as I need to add some stuff to the start of the story.

Writing the story felt good. Great, actually. I love writing short stories, I love experimenting, I love listening to those deep voices inside of me. I love playing this way.

One of the things that Dean has said, is that writers are mind control experts, directing the emotions of their readers, as well as exactly what they’re seeing. There were a couple of times while I was writing this story when I had one of those deep voices that piped up and said, “Here, now, you’re directing the reader this way.” Very odd, but very good: I think what this means is that I’m learning. I’m not there yet, but I’ll get there.

I’ve somewhat disappeared for the last couple of days. There are emails I need to respond to, things I must do, and I haven’t. I took some time tonight to figure out what was stressing me out so much.

To my surprise, it wasn’t the short story challenge. I’m not worried about writing a short story a week. That doesn’t feel like too much on top of everything else; the new day position for the day job, the holidays, the house, everything else.

What has been stressing me out has been the word count. I figured out that I’ve averaged about 500 words per day until this point. I’ve been worrying about making sure that I keep that average of 500 words per day.

Daily goals DO NOT WORK for me. A short story a week, with the focus on short, is doable, and all I need to focus on. Really.

So that’s what I am going to do. And tomorrow I’m going to answer email. Tonight, it’s the Project Runway finale!