So hard to concentrate…

My clock committed suicide last night. I think I was freaking it out by staring at it so frequently, and so at some point between 3 and 5am it decided to remove itself from this life. So I’ve had a rotten sleep and am now down one clock.
And I’m supposed to be reading Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum right now. But it’s so hard to concentrate when a) I’m sleepy, and b) there are stories to be written!
I did some (fairly minor) revisions on ‘Singing Breath’ last night, but had to put it aside after a half hour or so because I felt like my additions were beginning to look too much like subtractions. I already know which new change I want to undo, but have thought of a couple of other phrases that need tweaking. Then I started excising the New Ceres bits from my New Ceres submission — the skeleton of the story is worth salvaging, but I’ve thought of a different direction I *think* I can take it in. It’ll take a bit of research, but we’ll see how it goes. And I jotted some more notes into ‘No Ordinary Coward’ — I’m aiming for 3500 words (or less) with this one. That’s right, folks. November is all about dropping weight (it’s working better with the stories than it is with my arse, but still. I worked out with the girls last night… The arse will happen in good time. I’m more concerned with the stories’ waistlines at this stage.)
And I started another short shortie this morning — this one is shaping up to be about 1000 words, give or take. It’s a little scene that’s been playing in my head for a few weeks, and part of my insomnia is its fault. The damned thing just wouldn’t get out of my head, so all night I kept thinking, Don’t forget to mention X; oh, Y would be a really interesting feature; and what if Z happened?

Right. Time to hit the history books (so that I can relish the reward of writing tonight!)