Pain

O.K., just a quick update on me and what I’m up to for those interested.

• My hard drive is officially dead. The freezer trick didn’t work and we are coming to grips with the loss of our data (pictures, etc.) I am going to hold onto the drive in case I find a professional service that is affordable (~$200), but barring that, the data is gone
• I’m exhausted today. After several days of good sleep, my daughter had a rough night last night. She woke at 4:00 AM and stayed awake until 6:00 AM. Good times. Add to this the fact that I had a hockey game last night and didn’t get home until 11:45 PM, and I am dragging today.
• My right shoulder and left leg are killing me, probably because of the previously mentioned hockey game, which was much faster-paced than usual.
• I have made some good progress on my Machine of Death short story submission. I will submit this one.
• I have until tomorrow to submit my Chapter 2 for the local short story competition for my local newspaper, and am almost done with that one.
• I have an idea for a novel and need to begin outlining that one, though I have no idea how to begin the outlining process, and have never worked from an outline before (suggestions welcomed).

That’s me, how about you?

Neil Gaiman on Writing and Revisions

Neil Gaiman today answered a question from a reader regarding the amount of revisions one should make to a story. As always, his response was interesting and I think helpful for us writers. I don’t think we should take these professional writer’s opinions as gospel, but I always enjoy reading their take on things. Here is an excerpt from his post:

“Personally, I think you learn more from finishing things, from seeing them in print, wincing, and then figuring out what you did wrong, than you could ever do from eternally rewriting the same thing. But that’s me, and I came from comics where I simply didn’t have the liberty of rewriting a story until I was happy with it, because it needed to be out that month, so I needed to get it more or less right first time. Once I disliked a Sandman story on proofreading it so much that I asked if it could be pulled and buried and was told no, it couldn’t, which is why the world got to read the Emperor Norton story, “Three Septembers and a January”, although I no longer have any idea why I thought it was a bad story, and I’m pleased that Tom Peyer ignored my yelps.”

Anyhow, I encourage you to check out the entire blog entry.