Ugh... flu!

Sick as a dog!
Woke up this morning, sick as a dog. Sinus congestion, difficulty breathing, all over body aches, and tired.

I hate being sick. I mean, really hate it.

On a positive note, I wrote almost five thousand words today on my short story. I threw over a thousand of them out, but still, it's an achievement. It's going much better now that I've made the decision to write a character that I'm far more familiar with, one I've already developed to a high degree. There are still a few rough spots to work out, but I'll get there, and fairly quickly.

I'm shooting for between eight and ten thousand words. This is going to be difficult for me. I've already gone over the goal I set for myself for this point in the story. I don't know if I can pare it down to keep the entire story under my self-imposed limit. Working short isn't easy for me at all, but I'm confident I'll come in under the max limit for the contest, 17K words.

The goal is to polish this story up and enter it in the Writers of the Future contest by the end of this month. That means I need to finish the first draft by the first part of next week so that I can get it workshopped and proofread.

Anybody interested in taking a look at my short story? If I can get some folks who are willing to give me an honest critique and not show the story to anyone else, I'd definitely appreciate it. Just let me know.