Stop the clocks

Smaller achievements/shiny things of the day: have been sent second "Lavender and the Random Acolyte" story from my wonderful group (read and enjoyed), used up the last of the leftover pork by successfully following another recipe from my friend's mother (it involved dumplings, and I wasn't the only one who ate it, and there is none left, so I'm counting that as a triumph even if the pork did get a bit burnt).

Big shiny thing of the day: I finally finished Tick Tock. Heavens above, that story has taken it out of me.

Tick Tock started life aeons ago, intended for a Steampunk Horror anthology, but I was well and truly stuck in my rut back then and couldn't even start writing it. I told the basic idea to my friend Sarah, though, with much hand-waving and sarcastic asides (from me, I should say) and she liked it. She liked it so much that every time from then on that I mentioned an attempt at writing any short story, she'd demand, "Is it Tick Tock?"

She kept it alive in the back of my head, and eventually I stumbled across a submissions call for "Lesbian Steampunk", and thought I'd try again.

From the dates on the Open Office document, it would appear it's taken me almost two weeks to write it, start to finish. From the dates on the doc for Hanith, that one was about two weeks too, from start to submission. Hanith was 4500 words. Tick Tock is 8500. No wonder I feel absolutely shattered.

Strange to think that 75 thousand words in just over twice that time was nowhere near as difficult.

Short stories seem much harder to do. You need a clearer focus, one central idea on which to hang the trappings of a story, rather than the multiple interweaving subplots and grand concepts and sheer waffle you can explore in a novel, let alone NaNoWriMo when it's all about the word count, baby. I lost track of my central idea a couple of times while writing Tick Tock (which is partly why it's currently 8500 words, including a couple of scenes where I did the NaNo trick of Keep writing and you'll find your way back onto plot somehow). This doesn't really surprise me, given that it started out as a horror story concept and has since morphed a couple of times and completely changed its ending at least twice in the process. So tomorrow I should be editing and trimming and tidying and maybe, maybe, if I'm lucky and it's not as flabby and unfocused as I fear, I'll be able to make the submission deadline. I shall, therefore, go to bed now and save the thoughts on short stories for a different blog post, when I am actually awake.

Also I should clean the kitchen. My pots and pans are stacking up.

It's a big success for me, though, and I am proud of finishing it, whatever happens from here.