73

A Hard Rain, out the door. I'm hoping to have 74 packed off by the end of the week, just waiting for a microphone. It's an audio submission.

I just finished a draft of chapter seven of The Inner Workings of the Artificial Mind and sent it out to early readers (by that I don't mean preschoolers), so now I'm thinking about what I'll work on this week. Longtime readers of this blog may recall that every so often I pull out a story with the working title Process Five and say, "This will probably be number (whatever the next number is)." But it never is. Process Five is the story that never launches. Therefore, I won't say that Process Five will be diamond number 75. I will say that I may make it a draft or two better this week and maybe work on something completely new next week. We'll see.

Doing a thing a week, whether it's a story or a chapter is working well for me and it's definitely a better gear in which to be. My short term goal is to reach one-hundred stories by the end of 2008. It won't be the optimal speed for The One-Thousand but it's a hell of a lot better than any speed it's seen so far.

I've got nine days of vacation beginning Saturday, so I'm looking forward to getting more than one thing done next week. Time now to dive back into the fray. Talk to you soon.