In January 2006 I wrote a story for a competition in an Australian magazine. It didn’t win and now I’ve been rewriting the story for use in the upcoming Anthology publication.

The story has been completely revamped. I used the characters and the setting, but the plot took a lot of “bashing” and eventually changed altogether. The end result is a stronger plot, better characters and a world with a magical system. Yes, Mage Mustering (which was once called Guards’ Mustering) is the short story which caused my recent dilemma.

At the beginning of this week I set a personal goal: The story will be finished and edited by the end of this weekend.

Yesterday, being a public holiday due to the Apec meeting in Sydney, allowed me to turn my mind to writing in an aggressive way. I went to bed at my normal workday time on Thursday night, instead of staying up late as I usually do when I don’t have to worry about arriving at work with bleary eye sight. I set my alarm for 7.30am with the intention of sitting at the computer, all day if necessary, and getting the battle scene written.

By the time I had made a cup of tea - I honestly wouldn’t consider sitting at the computer without a cuppa, not first thing in the morning - and settled down to write it was 7.40am. I had a lot of trouble getting started and fought off the urge to play a game of pinball first. In the end, I bribed myself with the allowance of a well earned rest (with the promise of breakfast) after half an hour of writing. I thought that was fair.

I opened the file and forced myself to read the battle scene through from the beginning (yes, I made a few editing changes as I went) and then I started typing. Ten minutes later, or so I thought, my stomach grumbled and I looked at the clock and discovered that I had been typing for two hours - it was 9.45am - and the scene was finished.

Now that is what writing should always be like. It’s proof that I was so engrossed in what I was doing that I didn’t even know how much time had passed. I love it when that happens and wish it happened more often.

I have since gone through the entire story twice. I will edit it again this afternoon, but I think I can safely say Mage Mustering is done!

Filed under: Anthology Stories, My Writing:, Other Projects