My brain is full of STUFF

Writing night this week was tough! I've just started a new job and so my head is crammed full of information. Coming home at night from the new commute and sitting down and concentrating on writing was really difficult. AND I'd run out of any useful 'writing aids' such as Maltesers or Baileys!

So I didn't do much but I did so *something*, and *something* still counts. I focused on the short story again (the 'fish' and 'escaping' one). I finished up the words at the end, so now I have a complete first draft! And I tentatively titled it Piscky's Ascent.

Like always I have this immediate burst of enthusiasm when finishing a short story draft. It's brilliant! Beautiful! I must share it with the world right now! But - I am going to put Piscky's Ascent aside and get some distance before approaching it for editing. And when I do, I'd like to go in with some critical questions. What critical questions, though? That's what I need to figure out. Or Google.

I reckon there must be, like, 5 key questions you can ask as you edit, and the answers tell you what needs fixing and what needs finetuning.

Any ideas? Or maybe I'm trying to find the easy way out when there is none...

In other topics, we should say our respectful farewells to Mr Salinger. He wrote a pretty important book. I don't know much about the guy (does anyone?) except he was incredibly reclusive, so I hope he's at peace now.

I'm slowly making my way through It by Stephen King. It's a mahoosive book - practically square - that I find it difficult to hold in the tube! One of the chapters I just read is like an essay written by one of the characters, and it starts with the question: what if a whole town was haunted? I reckon it's the very question Stephen King asked himself as inspiration for writing this book.

My other reading material recently has been fashion & beauty blogs. My latest evening time-waster. I just love browsing product reviews and shopping updates. It's all quite girly and frivolous and fun. I'm a huge shopper at heart - I only just keep myself in check, to be honest - so these blogs are kind of dangerous!