Progress, progress

Yesterday (Friday) I wrote quite a lot.

Finished the rough draft of something I've been calling a literary/mainstream short story. It is written as fiction, though it is actually a first person account of dealing with the death of my best friend when I was 19. It was tough to write and it has put me in a fit of mild depression for the last few days I've been working on it. Gonna set it aside while I decide whether or not to revise it and try to publish it. Not sure it should or will see the light of day. We'll see how I feel about it in a few weeks.

Finally had a minor breakthrough on the book Death of a Bluesman. I've been stuck for a few days, so I followed Raymond Chandler's advice -- I introduced a man with a gun and made sure he had nothing but evil intentions for my boys Addison and Barnacle. The words are flowing again...which is good. The rough draft should be finished by Christmas, then I plan to work fast and hard on the revisions -- hopefully get it in the hands of the agent by Feb. 1.

Kind of have some ideas for the second "Addison and Barnacle" book, but have to do some work on the bad guy -- he/she has to be pretty tough as my boys don't scare all that easily.

Still working on the two mystery short stories and the horror. Actually, the horror is about done in terms of the rough draft -- I just need about an hour to work on it. One of the mysteries is nearing completion -- at 5,000 words it has become the longest short story I've ever written but I think it is pretty good and it stars "the boys."

Thinking about going to the "Love is Murder" mystery writer's conference in Chicago in February. It will be a great chance to meet editors and network, but damn it is costly. We shall see -- my goal is to attend 3-4 major conferences in 2006.