Four more critiques this morning including my own second story, which was generally perceived as insufficiently developed and a failed effort and rightly so. This is one that will need more than simple reivision once I return home.
Twelve stories were submitted this morning and this tipped the scales to TILT for many to the point that the group discussed their feels of being overwhelmed and looked for an equitable solution to everyone's desire for input without shortchanging anyone or eliminating all hope of sleep. I am pleased that the group addressed this without accusations, raised tempers, egos, or bitterness. We handled this first real challenge very well, I thought, and reached a concensus that is fair and workable. Only four critiques a day will be done now and these will proceed in an order that allows a more equitable distribution of critiques while saving the submission of us initially more profilic writers for later in the workshop when our production might ebb. This brings things to a more manageable level for all of us.
Karen, Jennifer and I rushed off after the session ended to return Jennifer's non-functional printer, eat lunch, and grab a few items at Meijers. We returned just in time for our walk to the library to view the special collection of science fiction material related to the clarion archive.
After returning to the dorm, Buck, Jennifer, and Angel went out to the gym. I would have liked to go but I was falling asleep at the library and thus felt it was time to take a short nap. Two hours later, I woke up and started on my critiques. I doubt I'll do any serious writing tonight but I still hope to find time to go through my notes of themes, plots, etc. I want to try so I can at least start another story or two.
I've heard from Greg regarding Sable, our sick cat, and he's eating and drinking normally but not urinating. Greg won't tell me how much he's spent thus far on the cat and if I knew, I'd probably say, PUT THE CAT DOWN! There are limits on how much I'm willing to spend upon our cats as I've seen some people put themselves into very deep financial holes trying to save a pet. He's not a young cat and I fear we may only be paying a large amount of money to postpone the inevitable a relatively short span of time.
In addition to the four critiques for tomorrow, I'm critiquing ALL the stories received thus far so I'll have more time tomorrow for writing. This is the place to experiment and I think I should try a grittingly dark horror story. I just can't decide which plot premise to choose. On the way back from Meijer's I was joking about writing a castration story as I'd done some research on animal castration and have all my notes on the computer about tools used, methodology, etc. and thus could have a really sick serial mutilator. I've already written a story (not submitted) in which the person voluntarily sliced off her breasts (alright -- breast reduction), and thus this would be balancing the scales. But since this is where you try something different, I think I'll save that possibly bad idea for another day.