An ugly draft is still a draft

I buried myself for an hour or two in the basement today and finished a first draft of my End of the Rainbow story.  It took some wild diversions from the original outline and feels a bit disjoint now, but it’s finished.  I’ll set it aside until the weekend and rework it then.   really need to trim it down.  It’s a pretty simple storyline.  I also need to do more with one of the important characters.

This is probably the sloppiest story I’ve written in quite a while.  Maybe that’s why it went so fast.  It still took the better part of two weeks.

No school tomorrow for me.  I stuck a rake in the snow out front; it sunk in eight inches.  I think I hit a deep spot, but still, that’s a lot of snow.  It’s enough that it’s over my miniature dachshund’s back.  I may be out all week.  We Tennesseans don’t cope well with snow.  No chains, no snow tires, few plows.  We stockpile salt, but that only does so much.  They usually clear the main roads pretty quickly, but it’s a backroad world here.

I’m going to scrounge up the notes I made at Starbucks the other day and see if I can grind out a flash story inside 24 hours.  (That reminds me, Jack Bauer’s on tonight!)  We’ll see if I can make those kinds of schedule holes.  After that I’ll target one of the two stories I have up at OWW.  Neither have gotten many comments, but enough that I have some direction to wander.  A character to cut out of the comedy; a transition summary to add to the tragedy, as well as a more defined character arc.

So much to do, so little time.  Oh, I have lots of time if you add up the three minute blocks my daughter gives me.  She summons again.  I must fetch a Fruit Roll-Up.  Bye for now.