Boot Camp -- Day 3

Well, yesterday was the first day that I actually thought I was going to die.

But that was because it was the day that I spent all alone in a hotel room trying to write an entire story.

It's finished now. It feels like a good story weakly told.

But part of the point is that it's worthless to go in and edit for language when somebody may say something about an event on page 4 that would make everything after that worthless. So you don't "polish" the story when you're still getting straight the "story" part of it, the who did what and why.

And in this story, with the exception of a couple of weak spots, I kind of like my who did what and why.

But I'm really excited about how much better than this it will get when people smarter than me get the story in their hands.

I'll tell you--getting it down was sure hard. Wow.

Since that's the first story I've finished since "Fifteen Minutes," I actually feel like a huge monkey has been shaken off my back. I woke up this morning feeling more relaxed than I have in months.

So, onwards and upwards. Time for the critiques to start. I have to be ready to discuss the first two stories by 10am.