I get woken up twice in the night, by the Kinderbeast, and wake up massively tired. Somehow I still manage to get up for my morning shift (continuing the rewrite of 1-UP). It’s PEAC day for the Elderbeast, but he resists going. It’s obviously going to be one of those weeks with him. Luckily the school holidays are pending, which will give us both a chance to relax.

After dropping the Elderbeast at PEAC I head to work and instantly wonder why I bothered: I’m zombie tired, and will have to leave again in less than two hours to collect the Elderbeast from PEAC, and will then have to finish the day at 2:30 for the school run. I figure I may as well work from home for the afternoon.

It’s a good decision. I manage to get a lot of things out of the way.

I pick the Kinderbesten up from the school. The Elderbeast heads off with a friend, so the Kinderbeast and I stroll slowly back, via the playground, and catch some Pokemon on the way. In doing so I manage to exhaust both my phone battery and my remaining energy levels.

Somehow I manage to cook both meat sauce and banana bread, all while enduring the Elderbeast at his maximum level of entitled brattiness. Finally things calm down and bedtime arrives.

The Story I submitted yesterday, Between The Devil & The Comfy Chair, got rejected quicker than a Dan Brown novel on a Booker Prize short list. It was auto-rejected for being over the word limit, so I manage to cut the other 300 words out and submit it again. It’s a good exercise, cutting just over 10% out of the story, and it reminds me of the advice Stephen King shared in On Writing, which was, indeed, to try and cut 10% out with each rewrite.

But how long until you end up cutting the whole story out …?