Two Completed Stories

The title gives away the big secret of this post.  But what the hell.  You guys hate secrets, right?  🙂

First, I finished the Writers of the Future story.  I still have not figured out a title yet.  I finished earlier today.  Err…make that yesterday now (it’s after midnight).  Total word count: 18,162 words.  Total time (this is an estimate since I didn’t start tracking until almost 5,900 words into it; it probably took a little bit less time than this in reality): 13.93 hrs.  Avg words/hr: 1303.49.

Not too shabby.  But there is one tiny problem.  Those of you familiar with Writers of the Future will figure it out very quickly.  The length.  The limit for WotF is 17,000 words.  So I’m going to see if I can trim 1200 words from the story.  I started working on that this afternoon and got down below 18,000 words.  But there are several hundred words left to trim.  We’ll see if I can manage it.

So that’s one.

My in-laws came over this afternoon, since my little guy Vasili (the guy who had the heart surgery last year) turns 3 on Sunday.  The better half and I took advantage of their presence to have a date.  We went and saw Act of Valor at the movie theater!  I gotta say, you must go see this movie.  It kicked some serious ass, almost making me wish I’d become a SEAL instead of a submariner.  Almost.

After we got back, we hung with the in-laws for an hour or so, then came upstairs to bed.  Ericka read Catching Fire for a while.  We’re reading this one together since we both loved The Hunger Games.  I got ahead of her, though, so I stopped reading for a few days.  She caught up earlier today, but I decided to write some more tonight, so she’s now ahead of me.  But that’s ok. 🙂

Instead of reading, I wrote a story that I thought of in a flash of insight yesterday.  It’s called Who Ate My Sock?  It came in at 2,064 words (bringing my total for the day to 3,446 – not too bad).  Total time to write: 1.1 hrs.  Avg words/hr: 1876.36.  The story’s premise is simple: have you ever wondered why socks tend to disappear in the wash?  Well, when Justine’s mom asks her to go into the basement and switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer, she finds out the reason.  And it is scary.

I liked this story a lot, and it’s been a while since I sent a story to a magazine.  So I went ahead and submitted it to Apex.  We’ll see what they think of it in 20 to 30 days (their advertised response time).  Maybe they’ll like it too!  🙂

Ok it’s now getting late.  I’m calling it a night.  Later, all.