102 degrees of separation

I wrote a 5000-word short story a few weeks ago and haven’t looked at it since. Part of me was probably afraid that something that I whipped out in two days was going to suck, so I’ve been shying away from it. This morning, I opened the document and started reading and was pleasantly surprised by what I found. I like the voice of the narrator and, other than a few tense glitches, I made very few changes to the first 10 pages. I still have five pages left to go, and that’s the part where the story is going to make or break. I suspect there may be continuity/logic problems I’ll have to address, but I like the story a lot. I was a bit dismayed that the title ended up being the same as that of a movie recently released on DVD, but since I haven’t seen that movie I guess there’s little chance that the stories are overly similar.

102°. That’s what my car thermometer registered when I left work yesterday afternoon. Not a dry heat, either. We have a foot less rainfall to date than we did this time last year and no sign of any in the forecast.

I awoke to discover a nice surprise this morning: I won a short story critique from Ellen Datlow as part of the KGB fundraising raffle. I can’t remember how many tickets I purchased. I was also vying for the Peter Straub manuscript, but didn’t win that one. Now I have to dither for a while over what to send her for the critique. Probably the best choice would be a story that has been around the block a few times without attracting much interest. That way I can gain the benefit of her insight into why the story doesn’t seem to be working for editors.

Eureka returns to SciFi tonight for its third season. It’s a cute little show. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Mad Men on AMC, so I watched the first episode on free OnDemand last night. I think I’ll carry on to finish out season one while taping Season Two, which started last Sunday. The “Mad” in the title is “Madison Avenue,” as in advertising. The focus character (of the first episode at least) is interesting—though it’s only at the end of the episode that we get a true understanding for how complex his life really is. The show has a bit of a Glengarry Glen Ross feel to it, without all the swearing.

The Closer was very good last night. Alec Baldwin’s character was such a creep. For a while I thought the story was going to go the obvious route and have it turn out that he was somehow involved, but his only crime was in trying to protect his son (although he was probably somehow responsible for turning the son into the monster he was). I liked the resolution to the murder plot, and I patted myself on the back for being smarter than the fictional homicide cops by figuring out what Brenda was doing with the father during the final interrogation scene.

By comparison, In Plain Sight pales. The main plot of each episode is usually quite good, but all the futzing around with the secondary characters undermines the show, in my opinion. They could drop a bomb on her mother and her boyfriend and the show wouldn’t suffer. The sister is a little bit interesting, especially now that the drug plot seems to be getting underway, but she’s such a ditz. Even Marshall Marshall isn’t getting much play these days.