I’d like to say that I’m half finished Drawing Dead but I’d say it’s more like a third. I just can’t seem to hit that 5000 word mark. For me, 7500 seems like the sweet spot. Which isn’t bad but it’s not good either. I think short story magazines would prefer stories to be around 5000 words as they’d be easier to place.

Here’s the unedited opening:

Joe Varley considered himself lucky.
Things always seemed to go his way. He hit more green lights than red. He had never been struck by lightning, and his winning percentage for useless games of chance was well over sixty percent.
Some people didn’t believe in luck. They tried to distill it into a scientific notation, tried to objectify the notion that random probability only allowed for complete randomness.
Those people said that because they had no luck at all.
Joesph Varley knew that if he had good luck most times, that he’d have bad luck other times. Like now.

I’m tired. I just can’t shake this bug. I’ve been going to bed at 9pm every night (and of course Paige gets me up at 6:30am). I played hockey on Tuesday — should’ve skipped it. Oh well.

The house hasn’t been taking up too much of my time. I’ve hired a lot of good people, and luckily for us, John and Danielle really helped on the weekend. John did the painting while Danielle watched the kids (which thereby frees up time for us).

We don’t move for another two weeks now, which is a good thing. The kitchen is finished, the bedrooms should be finished this weekend, and the bathrooms in the next couple of weeks. Makes things much easier when we move into a house that is almost finished. And once we move in, I’ll have more time for writing — which is why I’m supposed to be doing all of this house flipping.