Today, izzums wuzzums me has a wittle cold, so I decided to be a complete baby and not run at all. I had a difficult week, between travel and office work, so I was looking forward to my long run today. Instead, I started to come down with a cold yesterday afternoon, and this morning I woke up with a full blown … stuffy nose, and a little scratchiness right at the back of my mouth, above my throat, if you know what I mean. Ordinarily, I would ignore a little head cold and go for my run anyway — I read once that if your symptoms are all above the neck, you can run — but we’ve got plans for Thanksgiving, and I would prefer not to be miserably sick for the holiday, so I wimped out of my ten-mile run outside. I could have had a run on my treadmill, but wasn’t in the mood, which probably says more about how I’m feeling than anything. I’m a wimp.
What did I do all morning instead? Let’s go to the stats.
How’s the running going? Ha. Very funny.
What was playing on the iPod? Nothing this morning, and not much this week, since I didn’t run. I did listen to EscapePod #181 (“Resistance”) and #183 (“Beans and Marbles”) and Adventures in SciFi Publishing #68 (Sally Malcolm). The two EscapePod stories were very good; as a wannabe writer, I particularly liked “Beans and Marbles,” which is an excellent example of the unreliable narrator point of view.
What about the writing? I’m so glad you asked. I started a new short story — I’ll call it “Jimmies,” for now — on the train Monday morning and this afternoon, after an 2,000-word binge, I finished it, at 5,678 words. In some ways, I think this may be the best story I’ve ever written. I haven’t re-read it, so I don’t know if it’s the best writing I’ve ever done, which is a completely different question. It feels right, though. We’ll see how the revisions go.
It’s been a pretty good week for my fledging avocation as a writer: one acceptance, one rejection (and that story turned around and sent back out), and the first draft of “Jimmies” started and finished, with time left to revise it and “Babel” (the story I finished last week) before my self-imposed December 1 deadline to start the revisions on Meet the Larssons.
My plans for blogging didn’t work out too well. I’ll try to get the post about the puppy, at least, up before the holiday.
Finally, I want to wish all of you Wrimos out there good luck with the final week of NaNoWriMo. Keep those word counts up!
The Unfocused Life 