Day 418: Progress Update

This update will be a short one because I haven't made very much progress at all. It's pretty frustrating to get stuck on a story like I have with 'Jeffries,' and I'm not sure how to even avoid this trap. It feels like every time there's a story I really want to tell, it takes me months to get it out just the way I want. I know I should just write it, see how it turns out, and go from there, but man. It's so hard to do that.

I have gotten plenty of reading done though. My last book haul is going swimmingly. I've started on 'What the River Buries,' and should have a good first impressions post out by the end of the week. I think by the end of the year I will have read more books than I have in at least a decade. The last time I read this much was when I was rewarded points for every book I got through in elementary school. I think I deserve some points now too, children shouldn't get all the made up rewards to themselves. In fact, that might even be a fun website if it doesn't exist already. Assign a bunch of books point values and start a leaderboard, maybe send out small gifts to the winners. Who knows? It could be the next Facebook.

Well, that's about all I've got. I sent out some old stories to various magazines a while back but none of them were accepted for anything yet. Much ado about nothing. It gets harder and harder to send them out the more I write because the more I learn, the less interesting my old stories seem to be. I'd probably have to overhaul them to get them any good, but I just don't have the desire to do so. I'll just put my efforts into my current projects instead. Hopefully by the next update I'll have produced more exciting results.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley