Last night I managed to write out a twelve scene treatment for a (sort of) new short story. After some thinking and questioning of some of the scenes, I cut it down to about six scenes. I do think that’s the minimal for this story. I did cut the first two scenes, the last two scenes, and two scenes I had in the middle that felt a little too sub-plot-ish. I was then able to get about 600 words written on the first scene. I think this one will come in around 4-5k. This is actually a complete rewrite of a story I wrote before Clarion West. I’m keeping the characters and the general plot, only now the main character is an active part of the action. I have a tendency to write about non-passive victims. And honestly, victims are just not that interesting and rarely earn any sympathy. My characters do of course get abuse. Getting abuse and accepting the abuse are two different things. You can get abused and not be a victim—when you are confronting the abuse and fighting it, you are no longer in victim status. So keeping my heroes out of victim status has been the new thing to watch for. And what’s great, is it allowed me to do something really unique and surprising with this character.

I won’t have my kiddo this weekend. That always depresses me a bit. So to keep my mind off of it I’m going to spend the weekend catching up on critiques and working on the novel. I’ll probably finish the newest short story on Saturday as well and start on the next one Sunday.