Writing Ups and Downs

I’ve been working on a short story the last couple of weeks. The guidelines said a minimum of 3,000 words, which is a little less than most shorts I write, but I thought I could do it in about that many words.

The first week, I thought I would never get to 3 thousand words! It seemed like I wrote and I wrote, and the word count barely moved.

Now I’ve reached 3k, and it seems like the story will never come to an end! I’m so close, and yet I’ve got to go through so many details before I finally end it. I rather dread working on it, but if I don’t, it won’t get done. It’s not going to write itself.

I just noticed the deadline is August 1^st, so I’ve got some time. But I can hardly wait until I can revise the rough draft into a 2^nd draft. I’ve already seen places where I’ve used too many words, scenes that could be shortened.

I think my problem is that I’m not sure of the subject matter. But they wanted stories where a zombie presence is the new normal. So I’m writing zombies. I’ve only ever read one book about zombies. I used to watch the Walking Dead, and that scared me half to death, some episodes. It’s a fine line that I’m walking to be writing about zombies.

Well, I’ll be that much happier when I get it done and can submit it. Then I can return to working on my longer Work in Progress, which is waiting impatiently.

PS. I finished the zombie rough draft Wednesday night. The word count is now 4,500 words. I’m taking a couple days off from it before I start revisions.