The last story for the Lab...

...is 'The Great Olm'. This is a fantasy story (woman becomes olm) that I drafted three times from the point of view of the housekeeper, thinking it would go into Red Spikes. But the voice didn't seem to be right, and the logistics of the transformation, involving three generations each time, got too complicated, so I put it aside—'Winkie' went in instead.

Now I have 4800 of redraft from the point of view of the husband, and with added daughter-kidnapping, but still, the voice is not working. I think I may have made the young father a bit dim. Also, the names are wrong—Frankland, Alexia, Claire, Dorothy, Elena—and partly because of them the tone has gone off. I like all the different scenes, but the shallow person at the centre of them is keeping them earthbound.

Still, I've got more to work on than I had before, and there is not a tight deadline on this one—which may be why I haven't pulled it together so well. My subconscious seems to know when I don't have to work so hard.

Last Lab meeting tomorrow. This will mark the end of the new-story-every-2-or-3-days routine, although Jan's Draft Busters workshop will start again in February, and I'll need to establish a big goal for that. Plus get two of the new stories completed and sent off in the next week. Plus do tax and other paperwork that's fallen behind. End of holiday mentality. Sigh.