I’ve been trying to force myself to write 2,500 words of personal writing a week (approximately 500 words a weeknight). It took a while to get back into the groove, but this week I managed to take some serious swings at “Gloomy Sunday,” a short story I’m working on for possible inclusion in an upcoming anthology. I think I’ll probably have to end up rewriting some of it to get it closer to the proposed theme of the anthology, but at this stage I’m just writing to get to the end.

I’ve also been laying the groundwork for another fiction project called The Whitechapel Project, of which I’ll have more information once we get moved and settled.

Finally, I got an older story (“Bete Noire”) workshopped by and , and there’s only a couple minor things I need to tweak before I can consider that done and start shopping it around.

Interestingly, my writing process has evolved again. I started “Gloomy Sunday” as I usually do, by putting down the rough plot skeleton and doing the major research before I started with word one. (I also waited until I had a good opening before I started, which is a terrible habit, but I’m still working on that one.) As I started writing, though, the story started to deviate off course. Rather than force it back on track, I’m just following it to see where it goes. I think in the end the beginning and the end will be mostly the same — only the middle will be significantly different. It’s weird writing off of an outline, but it’s always good to push yourself.