I actually made some progress on 55. Not working late really helps.

174,000 bytes of compressed draft-quality fiction is headed your way, Liese. Thanks.

Whohoo! Got it. And will be reading!

Thanks for letting me inflict my writing on you!

Very little progress. A combination of working late and spending too much time examining my car stereo's wiring diagram.

Via Twitter:

FakeAPStylebook When considering whether to write in dialect, please don't.

Man, I love whoever is behind that. They got a book deal, too!

I am so buying their book. They crack me up.

(Link cross-posted in Bitches)

Ten Rules for Writing Fiction - authors share their tips, from the spiritual to the highly practical.

Not a lot of progress on 55, work is still getting in the way. I hope I can start making progress soon, I want to get done so I can get onto the next revision. Then the contest will begin, cuts vs. expanding into scenes, will the word count go up or down. Will trying to better define characters cost words or not? Will trying to better establish the setting cost words or not, I really need to do it through scenes and little bits of dialogue so it has the potential to cost words. If word count goes up, I stick with the two-book strategy. If word count goes down, I revert to the one-book strategy. I shall see.

Seska, I saw that, in one of my meanders through the internets. It was interesting.

• Major* rewrites this morning...I'm not getting more specific because you probably don't care how many pages I "threw out" although I saved it as version 3, so version 2 is still in there, in case, well, in case, whatever. But I had to change it cause I thought I was getting too...gag oriented, you know...thinking "People love it/I love it when the agent and his wife bicker...absolutely must have that!" When really the true heart of the story is a movie star, his BFF, and their great love...oops forgot which forum I was in for a moment, and I'm not a slasher. But that subtext could have a place set for it like Elijah on Passover.