Very very short fiction

At my creative writing class we have been exploring short stories, and shorter stories, and the joys of trimming, editing and concentrating story down until it squeaks. We looked at the Ernest Hemingway short Hills like White Elephants, and moved onto flash fiction. Speaking of which... I have heard on Helen Yendall's blog of a new 50 word story with great prizes, closing date 23rd October and free to enter! Since homework this week is write short fiction then make it shorter, I'll have a go.  

Meanwhile, the waiting continues, though it looks like it might result in another offer tomorrow for my books. With one offer on the table I feel fairly secure, and another one would be very flattering, especially as it's from a really big publisher. I shall wait and see what transpires. Once I know what's happening, I shall feel more able to get back to writing the sequel. On one hand, I feel liek I ought to be able to write loads faster, after all, I can type thousands of words a day, but I need enough thinking time to keep up with the story as well.

I've also been editing my father-in-law's book, and enjoying his delightful artwork and humour. The book's about drawing for children's comics, and it's filled with his anarchic humour - he clearly is in touch with his inner eight year old when he is drawing! It's a lot of work to get it all - text, pictures and captions, all in the right place and ready for pdf and then off to Lulu for publishing. I'm glad fiction just requires minimal formatting and words! I'm still astonished at how much fussing over commas, dialogue, punctuation, repetitions, spellings etc. even fiction needs. Many hours work.

My tentative plan is to get a good first draft of the sequel by the end of November then start on a major overhaul and rewrite of Baby's Bones. Of course, an editor might throw that out the window...