Word count: 6642 | Since last entry: 2390

Still in Chattanooga, at Mary Robinette Kowal’s writing retreat. In addition to Mary, Kate, and myself we are Steve Gould, Beth Wodzinski (editor of Shimmer), Sean Markey, Alethea Kontis, Laurel Amberdine, Chris Boros (Laurel’s husband), and Mary’s parents. A few more people may yet appear before Monday.

I talked with Mary and some others about the issues I raised in my last post and now feel somewhat better about the situation. Also, several people have popped up with suggestions for markets, though I still don’t know where I’m going to send that story next. Thanks to everyone who’s tried to help.

It’s been a good several days’ writing. I wrote 1700 words yesterday on what I’m calling for now “the pupa story”, and 600 words today. I’m not sure how good it is — I tried a bit of stunt writing which may or may not have worked — but it’s in the home stretch and should be a finished first draft, probably around 7500 words, before we go home. I thought I was getting better at making them shorter, and I guess I need to concentrate on that again.

We’ve been eating very well here. We went to Couch’s for barbecue last night, and otherwise have been dining well at Mary’s home: trout, curry, strata, various soups, and fabulous homemade baked goods including baklava, dark chocolate cookies, and two pecan pies. I got a Twitter account so that I would not miss out on the announcements of what new goodies had been laid out for our delectation. (We are divided among several rooms in two houses here, and Twitter is the method of choice for communication among the group. I am now daviddlevine (note the extra “d” in the middle) on Twitter. Can anyone suggest a good Twitter client for a PalmOS Treo?)

Today, many of us took in a matinee of Coraline, in 3-D (see photo below of the polarized-shades Mafia). The consensus of the group seems to be that it is visually very impressive (though a couple of us got sick from the 3-D), but the changes that were made to the original book’s plot were not improvements.

More writing tomorrow, and perhaps a little Chattanooga-area touristing.