I’m still making good progress on the novel. I’m about halfway through the treatment, which means I’ll be drafting by November. I have one story up for critique with my Clarion West critique group and I’m working on another that I hope I can get under four thousand words. I’ve put a real limit on the 4k story. I’m limiting the amount of pre-writing time, limiting the amount of actual typing time, and limiting the amount of revision time. The speed writing has really helped me build a little more confidence in what I can do in a short period of time. This story will be the first that I really try to write fast—I already have a market in mind for the piece. It’s a semi-pro market, but it’s an anthology. I tend to have good luck with anthologies.

I’m trying out a few writing tricks I’ve picked up. I’ll share them if they work. Additionally, I picked up a laptop. It’s a MacBook Pro. It’s not new—it’s maybe a few months old. I was fortunate that someone I work with ended up with two and wanted to sell the other. So I picked up a great laptop for dirt cheap. I’ve been using Scrivener to help organize my stories. Wow! What an excellent program. I think this will help with the speed.

I’m writing Policy and Procedure documents today for work. That’s never fun. However, I get to write them on my new laptop. So at least there’s one bright spot in the murk.