Back from Thanksgiving

Took a little bit of a writing break during Thanksgiving. I was at home visiting my parents and it was the first time I’d gotten out of this God-forsaken town in five months. I did, however, get a lot of reading done during the airplane flights. I finished “A Christmas Carol,” though there’s no point in writing a review of a 150-year-old novella. I roughly edited “Tryst,” and it’s posted below. It’s edited but not polished, I’d say–I’ll go over it 2-3 more times before I consider it truly finished.

I started thumbing through Writer’s Market tonight and there are a ton of contests and literary magazines that cater to new writers. Some submission deadlines are coming up soon, as early as Dec. 15. I’ll try and write like a tornado in the next week and see what I come up with worth sending in. I also need to buckle down and start applying to graduate schools, which also have looming deadlines. Same thing applies; I need to turn out a bunch of copy between now and the start of 2009. I have about 30-40 pages of prose I’d consider worthy of submission, and I’d like to have more to work with when deciding what to send in.

Currently Reading:

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens (107/107)

On Writing, by Stephen King (94/291)

Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson (83/701)