flash fiction short story novella novel series

Stupid Monsters just won't stop growing. I'm *still* working on draft 2 (3?) and i'm on page 52, with ... another 20 to go? Maybe 25? It's (mostly) plotted out, but as I type it up (and the problem is that each week I say, "Okay, gonna work on the story now" and then I DON'T, until freaking Sunday/Monday, and then I spend all day doing the work I should have done over the course of the past seven days....
Anyway. As I keep typing it out, it just...kinda keeps going. Which is fine, it needs to be as long as it needs to be. I just need to get it DONE so that I can start fixing the stuff that I know needs fixing.

And, you know, tonight (in 17 minutes, actually, so I need to wrap this up and make my way to the class...) is the penultimate session. And people have expressed a LARGE desire to read the finished product, so I feel like if I don't get it done soon, I'm not only disappointing myself, but my followers (heh) too.

lost time and whatever else

i can not believe that it is twenty-eighteen. And already (almost) the 5th month. So often I hear people talk about stuff from 2011 or 2006 or 2017 and I'm like, ...oh, yeah. Those are all in the past. It REALLY doesn't feel like it a lot of the time. Is that a symptom of getting older? Where it still feels like fifteen years ago, date wise? Or is it just a me thing? Or both. Probably both. 

I've got a sleeping (though awake now, because children are loud and noisy) dog next to me, that's a pretty great thing.

Every Friday my work does a segment during the noon news called "Forever Home Friday" where the Animal Foundation brings in a dog (and every once in a while a cat) to be adopted. Supposedly EVERY single animal they've ever showcased has ended up getting bought. And they've been doing this segment for decades. Which is pretty darn cool, actually. I'm all for things that increase the amount of joy in the world. Lord knows there's plenty of garbage out there, and things that are working against people's happiness. 

Speaking of increasing joy... we're going to go grab some food for dinner, and possibly get a new board game. 

to make a long story short - too late!!

So, I'm mid re-write of Stupid Monsters, and I know I was told to make the story "as long as it needs to be", but.... I'm on page 28*. And I'm at ...maybe the 51% point?
I think it's still a decent story, I'm just... it might be too much of a good thing? I don't know. I'm going to finish it up, and see what people say, but it wouldn't surprise me if "dial it back some" is in the feedback I end up getting. Heh.


*(For comparison's sake, draft 1 was 18 pages, although the final three or four were quite obviously rushed)

whatever

not today, apparently. you'd think I'd learn.  And, honestly, the idea was sort of lame to begin with, and I don't even know if i want to do it at all. (OF course, i'm also running on 4.5 hours of sleep, so maybe my mindset isn't teh best right now either0

Grading Awol

I like AWOLNATION. The band has put out 3 albums now, each with 14 tracks on it. There have also been three different songs from various soundtracks, bringing the total number of songs I'm familiar with to 45. (I'm positive that they have other songs in their oeuvre, but, we're sticking with what I know.)
For the next five entries, I'll be picking 9 songs to discuss. I'll be talking about the songs, the lyrics, and, if they have one available, the music video.
Each song will be assigned a number, 1 - 45, and then I'll use the magic of the internet to select 9 randomly chosen numbers to determine which order the songs get talked about. 
The songs (and their numbers) are:

From the album Megalithic Symphony:
1. "Megalithic Symphony"
2. "Some Sort of Creature"
3. "Soul Wars"
4. "People"
5. "Jump on My Shoulders"
6. "Burn It Down"
7. "Guilty Filthy Soul"
8. "Kill Your Heroes"
9. "My Nightmare's Dream"
10. "Sail"
11. "Wake Up"
12. "Not Your Fault"
13.  "All I Need"
14. "Knights of Shame"

From the soundtrack for the video game Injustice: Gods Among Us:
15. "THISKIDSNOTALRIGHT"

From the album Run:
16. "Run"
17. "Fat Face"
18. "Hollow Moon (Bad Wolf)"
19. "Jailbreak"
20. "KOOKSEVERYWHERE!!!"
21. "I Am"
22. "Headrest for my Soul"
23. "Dreamers"
24. "Windows"
25. "Holy Roller"
26. "Woman Woman"
27. "Lie Love Live Love"
28. "Like People, Like Plastic"
29. "Drinking Lightning"

From the soundtrack for Iron Man 3:
30. "Some Kind of Joke"

From the album Here Come the Runts:
31. "Here Come the Runts"
32. "Passion"
33. "Sound Witness System"
34. "Miracle Man"
35. "Handyman"
36. "Jealous Buffoon"
37. "Seven Sticks of Dynamite"
38. "A Little Luck... and a Couple of Dogs"
39. "Table for One"
40. "My Molassess"
41. "Cannonball"
42. "Tall, Tall Tale"
43. "The Buffoon"
44. "Stop That Train"

From the soundtrack for Fifty Shades of Grey:
45. "I'm On Fire"

garbage

almost 20 years ago today (it was 19), was the day that Steph and I got to go backstage before the Garbage concert and meet the band, and the photo with me and Shirley Manson was taken.

That's crazy.

I got nothing else to blog about - I was going to start the Awolnation posts, but since I fell asleep during Survivor, (my office pick got voted out, but he was a garbage person anyway, so even though I won't win the jackpot, at least he's not on our screens anymore) I'm obviously not awake enough to create soemthing that requires that much brain power and googling, so... next time it is.

workshop done

The workshop yesterday went pretty well. I had originally planned on recording it with my phone, but didn't - didn't have time to set it up and/or ask if it would be allowed, plus it went on for nearly 20 minutes and I don't think I had that much free space/battery power left on my phone. But, I received quite a bit of interesting feedback, along with an idea on how to tweak a certain element of the story that changes a LOT, but could make it better in a lot of ways. I was going to post it here - I may, still, but I ...might wait until after the semester, because I don't know if posting it online is something that I'm "allowed" to do. I may be over thinking this. heh.

We'll see, I guess. I might post "Stupid Monsters" for my next blog post, or I might go with my planned Awolnation post(s) instead. Or maybe something different altogether.