Sleep Deprivation

I can't sleep. I'm too excited about everything.

I've just read the story written by my fellow WOTF winner, Jeff Carlson. It's called "The Frozen Sky" and it's a hard-SF fan's wet dream. It's set in Europa's frozen oceans, and is an intelligent, unrelenting screamer of a story. Read it!

Joe Jordan -- my roomie at WOTF -- has just posted over a hundred pics from the workshop and awards ceremony. Everyone looks just fabulous, darling. I suspect we're only ever going to be treated better than we were this week if we become Academy Award winning actors.

Tim Powers has just sent a very full list of all the fiction, non-fiction, plays, poetry, and films we should all watch before we die. The man's just showing off now. But that's what it's all about, eh?!

Anyway, rather than just blathering about all these fine and dandy things, I've been putting my mentally excitable state (I'm imagining atomic theory for the brain's energy levels here. Picturing ideas being fired off like photons as the brain returns to a stable state) to good use and deciding my new modus-operandi for writing. It's encapsulated by the phrase "It's the Sundays, stupid!". Yes, the seventh day will not be a day of rest or worship, but it will be accorded the necessary reverance. It will be my primary writing day!

I'm figuring it like this. Monday through Friday I kick around some ideas, develop a character and a situation, and have a plot ready to go by Saturday. Then, on Sunday, I write the entire first draft of the story in one extended sitting, only breaking for essentials. The following week I re-read the story on, say, Wednesday, and clean up the draft so it's ready for a first reader by the weekend. Rinse and repeat. If it works out I'll have fifty-two new stories each year. That sounds like a reasonable level of production to me!

Tomorrow I'm going to hunt for a local glassblowing studio so I can do some research for my next piece. I'm very excited about the combined prospect of intense heat and intellectual improvement.

Twenty-four artists at one signing. That's why we're under the "Bargains" banner!