So do a little something for the fun challenge. Various folks are submitting spawn, novels, tunes, dramatic readings, etc. I may even get around to finally doing mine.

And the novel thing. In 2007 I wrote a nano of 50,006 words, if memory serves, with a very rushed ending and a kind of sketch of a plot. Working title: But Before That. And toxicfur contributed a nice picture for the cover art. In fall of '08, I rewrote it to about 65k words, fixed a lot of the plot flaws, and so forth. Having read through that draft now with my novel writers' group, and with critiques/comments from a few others, I decided November 3 to rewrite it, yet again, this time in the first person, in the voices of two characters. It's kind of like acting, in that it's obvious that you don't know why you're doing what you're doing if it's you doing it. It's November 28 now, and I'm at about 72,000 words. Many of them were taken more or less whole from Draft 2, with only the pronouns changed to protect the innocent. Of course, that doesn't really address the narrator's voice problem, but hey. I'm 70k words closer to wherever I'm going with this. It'll need at least another minor rewrite, if not a wholesale slash and burn job.

Thing is, I've come to the part where things start to happen, and they were not that well motivated in Draft 2, so (I hope) it'll be different this time through, and the plot may diverge in significant ways from the story as it's been told up to now. Should be exciting.

And my wrists are sore.

Oh, and the new back porch won't be done by the end of the month. If the inspector comes Monday, it might be essentially done but for painting by midweek. The puppies are so confused by the fact that they can't use "their" door.