Sunday, The Pits

I woke about 4:30 with a pain in my back like a twisting knife. I got out of bed and tried walking. Spasms hit like punches. I thought I walked like a person having seizures. I got out the bag my sister gave me, popped it in the microwave, and tried to get some control over myself. I thought I had got myself where I could get to work. Half a block away, and I knew I had not - every step was a jab in my back and a constant paid ran up my right leg to the middle of my back and then down my right arm. I called work and let them know I could not make it to work. That hurt worse than my back. Yes, I lost $60, but I also let down my employer. I hobbled back to the room. I heated up the bag again, and I laid down atop it. Then I passed out for almost 4 hours. Not sleep, really, but a collapse without any noticeable change from being awake to unconsciousness. It helped some. Reapplying the bag throughout the afternoon had me feeling better than I have in almost two weeks.

I got out the laptop after getting something to eat and started on email and blog posts.

 I did listen to a couple of shows on WPRB and to yesterday's Backwoods show on WMBR.

Not having any Coca-Cola, I made off to McClure's.

Back in the room, I made more revisions to "Colonel Tom." I keep telling myself there is nothing more to do, and then I find more. It comes from me reading while trying to think how someone else might be reading the thing. This time it was about tenses. I had to put out of mind my thinking that the verbs must be active, while the story might make more sense if I make clear the flashbacks within the flashback. Prison left me quite enamored of Bollywood films where there are flashbacks within flashbacks. 

Tonight I started submitting "Colonel Tom" where I had withdrawn the story.

1. Necessary Fiction (not accepting right now)
2. Black Sun Lit
3. Marathon (not accepting right now)
4. Swamp Ape
5.  New England Review (not accepting right now)
6. Yalobusha Review (not accepting right now)
7. Common Ground Review 
8. jmww  (not accepting right now)
9. Mount MHope
10. Bluestem (not accepting right now)

I also read Rosamund Lannin's Milk Tooth on the Bluestem site and Hayley Notter's Black Ice at Marathon. The latter seems a bit more like flash fiction, very short. I liked both stories, but I get the sense Marathon might like my grim stories a bit more.

 Now time to close this post.

sch