I've been busy all day. Just now getting productive, though.

wrote for a couple of hours and sent out / prepared a few short stories for submission. If I get my fourth one out tonight then I'll be happy.

You eat the tree bark for breakfast too?

My friends give me such a hard time for eating the whole grain, Kashi-esque cereals. I like em though.

Good and good for ya...

Hmmm. The problem is, I'm pretty much working during daylight hours and flights are already booked so staying thru the weekend isn't an option. Perhaps I'll just make do with exploring the city and save the climbing for a more opportune time.

Shorts in the winter eh.

So you're one of THOSE people.

Climbed the rock yesterday. Was fun.

Climbed with a new cat I meet on the knob. He did his first lead belaying and lead his first route yesterday and didn't hesitate a bit. Could be potential there, which is good, I need a new partner now that my brother is in college and has no time climbing the climbs.

How long is a short story supposed to be? Is it a rhetorical thing?

Once upon a time there lived a short story. It died in a puddle of remorseful naiivity, never knowing how long it should have become. The end!

so what's the weather like down there? is the snow all gone?

I used to eat shredded wheat as a kid... unusual kid I was. I only like the frosted ones now.

Had some whole wheat pasta on Saturday... it's tricky getting that stuff to al-dente... its a fine line.

Where's your nearest crag? Rag? What gym do you normally use? We used to head to the one in Richmond on occasion... it was decent.

It depends. My shortest one is 399 words, and my longest decent one is about 2700 words. I've written a couple that went about 8000 words, too, but I don't like them as much.

Anything longer than that starts to get into the murky long short story vs. novella waters. I've written a novella, too.

There are some publications that ask for what are called short-shorts. These are usally less than 500 words, but some can be less than 50 words. There's one publication that asks for a six-word short story. I kind of like the publications that ask for a one-sentence story. I've written one that was about 30 words long and I really liked it. Haven't submitted it anywhere, though. Gotta wait for that opportunity to present itself again.

In general, the publication defines what is a short story. Most give a min and / or max word count.

Old Rag is certainly the closest "real" climbing but there is a small outdoor spot right in Richmond called Manchester bridge. I haven't been to the gym in awhile but I do like Peak, it's one of the nicer and better run gyms I've climbed at. Where did you live that you were heading to Peak? Hampton Roads?

aye, the same to you matey, the same to you, too.

may the weather gods be kind ta ya and may ya get as mooch hikin' and climbin' as ya heart desires.

Wow... six word stories huh? That would be tough. One sentence stories could be kinda fun.

Took the older boy camping in the rain with his scout troop. Weather wasn't tooo bad. Although we got a fair bit of rain Saturday evening while we were trying to cook dogs. Everyone sleep in their car, as did we. Although I got the impression not everyone sleep as well as we did.
Sunday we did go for a short nature hike lead by the ranger.
So overall, not too bad given the weather was somewhat less than optimal.
D

I used to eat shredded wheat as a kid... unusual kid I was. I only like the frosted ones now.

Had some whole wheat pasta on Saturday... it's tricky getting that stuff to al-dente... its a fine line.

I used to eat shredded wheat as a kid... unusual kid I was. I only like the frosted ones now.

Had some whole wheat pasta on Saturday... it's tricky getting that stuff to al-dente... its a fine line.

that's cause you got a camper. woooo!!!

Why would anyone sleep in the car vs the tent, though? I'd much rather stretch out. Well, unless it meant putting it up and taking it down in the rain, but I've done that before OK.

One guy got his tent up before the rain started. But it didn't have fly, so it was all wet inside by the time it came to sleep. I only had our suburban, no trailer for just Jake and I. I've sleep in the back of the sub before, it rocks. I pull the rear seat out before the trip, the middle seat flops down and makes a flat area at least 4x8. Prolly a little longer. No pitching in the rain, no wet muddy tent to roll up or clean up latter, no worries about water at the seams or corners. Just fold up the pads, bags, and seats and ready to go. Love it.
Most guys had minivans or small SUV's. Which should have worked. One guy had a car that he reclined the front seats. Which I've done but is less than optimal.
We were less than 30 min from our house at a local county park. So to me that barely counts as camping. But it had a good number of primative camp sites, and group camp area that was spread out, a play ground for the kids, the river was flowing quite well from all the winter's rain that the kids got to explore. Only a part of the 80,000 acres are developed, the rest is natural. Ranger led a hike. Kids got to ask lots of questions. So it was all good.

ah yeah, I can totally see where a suburban makes for a nice camping vehicle.

sounds as if it was a good trip all around. maybe all that rain has been good for the outdoor type stuff. I mean, what, you haven't seen rain there in decades right?

getting a little tired of rain on the weekends right about now.

i always loved rain midweek and hated rain on the weekends. here's hoping things turn around for you once the good season comes into full swing.

Wow... six word stories huh? That would be tough. One sentence stories could be kinda fun.

Words are amazing things. One of my favorite writing styles is to intentionally break the rules. For instance; I wrote a story in first person based on someone who knew he was about to die and was writing his last mements. So the writting had tons of spelling and punctuation errors. The effect was to pull the reader in to a faster frenzied 'tempo' as they read; which meshed with the true tempo of the story in that moment.

Richard Matheson did something similar in a story called (I think) Father Thing