After a quiet weekend I’ve just about kicked the bug — down to a bit of coughing and a tendency to tire out which I ought to shake in the next day or two.

The Write-a-thon update: I did get some work done on the Week 3 & 4 story, but I’m still not satisfied with the ending. I’ll keep at it, but the main focus this week will be “Maura Makes Circuits”. This was originally a failed attempt at NaNoWriMo 2004, abandoned after 11K words for an overhaul of what is now The Goddess of Nothing in Particular. I picked up “Maura” again during my third week at Clarion West, when, due the vagaries of scheduling, I only had a few days to submit a story and I felt justified in pulling something out of the trunk. That version had around the same net word count after around 3K words in and out.

I still think it could be a novel someday, but the goal this week is to create a tight 7- or 8K-word story using the Aristotlean Now. Bye bye flashbacks. Most of them, anyway.

The opening section is actually excerpted here. Sorry if the entry brings back unpleasant electoral memories (I’m looking at you, Ohio).