Lots to do today! I'd like about 4,500 words on my novel to finish up the disaster draft and make plans for the ensuing rough draft starting tomorrow.

I'd also like to finish my rough draft from the critiques of a short story (TC) that I'd like to put up on my queue on Tuesday for it to come up on the rounds on Wednesday. This is, in my opinion, the last big polish for this story, and I've got three others I'd like to fix up, too, that have already gone though the critique process.

Then I've got a really super-cool idea for combining two stories--well, one story and one other character that I can hardly bear to delay on, but I really have to get this other stuff done. Mostly the 4,500 words, which, I have 500 done, so only 4,000 more to go! This will then be a 67,500 + a few extras, of what I call a disaster draft of a novel.

The disaster draft is set so that if I die, it automatically self-destructs, because I would just die of embarrassment if anyone ever saw this sucker

I then want to rework it and start the rough draft next week.

Plus the house is a wreck. I'm dead tired when I come home from work, so everything just gets left for me on the weekends. I've gotten all the mopping done, so it's just the vacuuming and general stuff left. Not too bad, really, but a lot of miscellaneous piles. My eldest daughter is driving me insane with how messy she is and how disregarding! I want to take her cereal bowls and her kitchen messes and her papers and her dropped towels and slopovers and just .

I have a terrible feeling I've made a complete horse's behind out of myself at the other blog place . Oh, well, what are blogs for, if not to make you grow a tail and poop every once in a while.

The problem is, is that blogs just seem so cozy and isolated that it's easy to forget. I do think this one is quite cozy, as it's really off the radar, and in that light, is really nicer.

This story is actually a combination of two stories, but I think they'll mesh pretty well. In the original story, it was 40,000 brothers (brothers in arms), bespelled to all love and obey one woman. In this new version, there are three brothers, the last of the 40,000.

The other story I'm weaving in on top of this one is a Medusa story that was lost when my computer crashed, but the only really good part was the end. So, I want to see how they work together. It should be cool! In my imagination, they're neat together.

I'm going to go make the document to hold all this and start.

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Hey, almost 60,000 words on the novel . It's really hard to believe, besides being easier than you'd think. This is a novel in 90, and is supposed to be 67,500 words in 90 days. 750 words a day. We're done in 11 days, and at least I'll have a rough draft, though rough draft is pretty kind--it's more like a disaster draft! but I think that's okay. Lots of room for improvement.

I also have a great idea for a story that I've been dithering about, and I know that if I would just go and do the darn thing, it should go pretty easy, really. I think I'll use my blog here tomorrow, and try to figure it out and go for it. I used to do that, but got out of the habit, but I think it was helpful.

My story at the Critique Circle is going over pretty well. It's sort of surprising how positive most of the critiques are. The negative one was rather surprising as she just seems so negative--and, I thought, brusk in her phrasing. Yet, for her story, the things that I mentioned produced a rather surprising reaction, which I wasn't expecting. Very contrite, almost embarrassed, and yet, they were such little things!

At first I thought that she was just being , but now I wonder if it's just a defense reaction, but a defense before the fact. A perfectionist is such a hard thing to be! So, in that light, kudos to her for in there, trying.

Wow, I haven't been here since Just 7th!? Amazing, and sad, too. But I tend to get into little places and settle in like a toad in the hole, and that's pretty much it. I think Blogstream feel off my radar. LJ is so much busier and fraught, and plus, I joined Critique Circle, besides Liberty Hall.

There are a few other people who offer to look at mss for me, but I avoid them. I want more control about what I'm doing and giving my stuff to. And then you owe them, and if they say, "Oh, here, I've looked at your 2,000 word story, so now I want you to look at my 100,000 word novel," there just isn't a lot you can say.

Not that they would ever do that in a million years, but I don't want to leave open the door to it, either. I know they don't do that with anything more than feelings of sharing and trusting.

I've got two stories mailed out. I know that isn't a lot, but I still have faint hope that tm will do okay. I had to go through my blog and erase all complete title referrals, because apparently, if you do get into the finals for WotF, you can't have even the title out there where the judges can see it and "know" who they're reading. I think that's smart, but didn't know it before, when I was writing the title and all, so had to fix it. Even though I'm not a finalist, I feel it's good to get into good habits.

I put that story in at Critique Circle, and it's such a shame that it didn't go there before I mailed it. It will be a much better story with their edit suggestions. I also have, what, three others, now? IntH, ThCo, and one other, I can't think of right now. .

The other one that is mailed out was purely by chance. At CC, one of the ladies mentioned the 24 hour contest by WritersWeekly.com, so I entered it. I'll hear from both of these at about the same time, sometime in mid-September. That's it for now.