"The butcher's shop was still clean and empty when she got there in the morning. The young priest called to her from the back room where he was dressing for work."

I was fussing with this story in my head last night, so I have to dig it out and look at a little now. I like this one, just like I like my pillar saints story (shame on the podling for not having seen Uncorked yet, btw. More shame on Hannah and mek for not having seen Amelie yet) But like Hoc Vale, I have no plot. Less of one even here than in Hoc, but that one's also stalled. I think I have to pull them off the back burner in my mind now, and start thinking more actively, see if I can't get something going with them before Firing comes back and I have no death stories out there. :) Well, Listening's out, but that's got even fewer markets left.

Tags: firing, hoc vale, libations, listening, roma

Well, I scrounged around through a number of stories all day. And got 130 words written on my suicides story, before deciding that it's going to take some serious thought to get the crisis of faith going there and back-burnered it. And then I opened up Bough, which hates me, and at 12:30, probably on the nose, my brain clicked on, and I started writing. 550 words net gain, but I read the whole story at least once, and rewrote things all over the place without changing the SMF word count, so it's probably about twice that. This is just crazy.

Anyways, I've now got new stories up in all three workshop spots, so I'm hoping my brain will switch over to novel for the rest of this month. And while I'm pretty sure this story still isn't finished, I think maybe it's closer to finished. I should be so lucky that it just needs polished and sent out, but it could be that end is in sight. Oh, and speaking of ends in sight--I'm at the median points for both Asimov's and ROF. 68 and 56 days respectively. Which means little, except that Asimov's has been slushing lately--10 pieces in ten days on the Black hole, many dated since I sent mine, so I may have a 'surprise' in the mail tomorrow. Which at least would mean I could send Firing off. And besides, I love it when I stagger pieces such that the medians line up. :)

Tags: bough, firing, libations
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