A much-belated productivity report

I was going to post my next writerly productivity report last weekend, but due to my father-in-law's death Friday morning, that and many other things didn't happen. After a sad and hectic few days, now is when life slowly slouches back toward normality, so here goes:

Reading: I only got through two more stories in Prime Codex. "Button by Button" by E. Catherine Tobler was the first one in the book to underwhelm me. For me, the characters came across as very flat, the story's events took a predictable direction, and overall the story was slow and uneventful, without a strong conflict. While the writing was good, there was nothing spectacular about it to make up for the shortfalls. The second story I read was "Black Boxes" by fellow Odfellow Matt Rotundo, which I did enjoy. I particularly liked the touches of Poe and Orwell that snuck in there, though the ending felt a touch too quick to me--the protagonist came to his decision regarding his black box without me really getting to be as fully in on the reasoning and significance of that decision as I wanted to be. But still a good tale overall.

Exercise: Got in some pilates and some time on the elliptical strider.

Music: Another week of rehearsals and practicing, plus a concert Sunday afternoon amid all of the funeral-planning hecticness.

Writing Business: Two more rejections, two more stories back out the door. Dear 2009: I'd really like a sale now, please.

Writing: 1,600 more words on the zombie story last week, putting the total words so far just past the 5,000 mark. The end is in sight, though, so I think the first draft will come in under 10K. Man, it's been a while since a short story has taken me this darn long to write. On a positive note, last Wednesday was the best writing day I've had in some time. I plopped myself down in a coffee shop after my piano lesson--just me, my AlphaSmart, and my lunch, with no internet for distraction--and cranked out 1,000 of those 1,600 words .