Last couple days haven’t been super-productive for writing. Doctor appointments, theater tickets, band rehearsals, all have frittered away my time. Today is my one-year anniversary, and I’m holding that sacrosanct from writing.

I’m trying get as much done before class starts on Wednesday. I plowed through the short I’ve been working on just to say I had a draft done. I was falling asleep at the wheel, but didn’t want to stop before I had something for the girlfriend to read and provide feedback. She really likes it, and thinks it could be a really strong piece after some revision.

On top of class, my looming deadline is mid-February. I’ve been pondering submitting a short story in addition to my novel for the literary contest. “Short Story” is a different category from “Science Fiction/Fantasy.” My original thought had been that I could use “With Fans,” but the girlfriend has pointed out that the submission deadline for the short I’m working on is well past the due date for the contest, so it is eligible.

I spent last night writing a very short synopsis for A Sunless Garden to see what comes out for me as the primary plot elements. Not quite done, but it’s already much longer than my first stab at such a synopsis for Court of the Red King. Probably because I have a lot more side-plots in ASG.

Getting feedback on shorts that I might use for a hypothetical submission to Clarion/Clarion West has been slow. I’ve gotten responses from two people that have read all my stuff, and neither of them agree about what my two best are. I’ve had some feedback from people who read A Ghost of Christmas Past. So far people have felt it stands up well on it’s own. The only issue that came up was some confusion about Snowflake’s gender early in the story. (He’s all man, baby.) And forgetting that he was a panda.

Tomorrow the girlfriend leaves for a work related trip to the peninsula and will be gone for a week. And I have Monday off of work. So I’ll be spending Sunday night and all day Monday working on my excerpt and synopsis, maybe polishing up the short I’ve been working on to get it ready for broader feedback. The girlfriend is saying it has the potential to be the best thing I’ve ever written, so I guess I can’t ignore that feedback.