"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:18

Well, now I've gone and done it.

Done what, you may ask? Put my writing pride on the line in a friendly wager with Cathy Elcik (you can read more about it here) that's all about being the first person to create / revise 30 pages of finished, submission-worthy prose before the end of the year. Pretty much the antithesis of my attempts to become more productive by freeing myself of the sin of perfectionism.

But there's a wager involved. Drinks on the line. What's a little backsliding going to hurt, compared to the joy of shouting "Boo-yah!" in the face of a writer you respect while drinking a Boston Cream martini on their dime?

Of course, that's assuming I'm going to win.

Cathy's working on a novel - I'm writing short stories. Really, really short stories. That's means I'm going to need something like five or six complete, thoroughly revised stories (including one brand new piece) to win this race. While attempting to write during the Christmas holiday season (Holiday parties! Dungeons & Dragons and Call of Cthulhu commitments! Football games!).

Progress so far? Two stories revised and almost ready, although both still needing one final brush-up before going out into the world. One is five pages long, the other is... two. (It's a work of flash fiction, under 500 words. Two pages is actually generous.)

I did get three pages into the new piece tonight, and it looks like it might become a reasonable story, at a reasonable length story. But it's a three-page start that's still very much in the shitty first draft category. So basically I'm at 23 pages to go.

I wonder if Cathy does the fist-pump "Boo-yah!" while doing her Snoopy dance.

Thanks for Reading,

Stephen