SNAFU yes, FUBAR no

For those unfamiliar with the terms, they’re WW II military slang: Situation Normal——All Fouled Up and Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition (the military, of course, use a different F-word than “fouled”). Which is to say that while the week proved as chaotic as anticipated, I think I can put it down as a win.
Between special assistance TYG needed for her alumni event, taking time out for the dog, chatting with the houseguests and staying out late as TYG’s plus-one at alum events (all of which I should note was quite enjoyable), I was off-balance enough that I had a hard time focusing on eHows. But instead of the usual solution——wasting time on the Internet——I made myself put in extra hours on my fiction instead. As a result, I chopped six hours off my fiction-writing deficit from November (leaves 10.5 hours to work off) and I can end the week feeling productive, though not terribly profitable.
•I reworked Swords of al-Andalus, which has been stalled for several months. It’s still not right, but I think approaching the core of the story as a character arc, which I did this draft, is the key.
•Dum-Dum-Diddle has a good second draft; while I think I’ve got the emotional core of the story, though, I badly need to give it more of a plot.
•I reworked the protagonist of Southern Comfort (my elves-in-Georgia novella) into someone more Cagney and less Mitchum——that is, less phlegmatic and more hot-tempered, more impulsive. The other guy just wasn’t working for me; I’ll try the new guy out next week when I sit down to write.
•I continued thinking on Brain From Outer Space and I think I’ve taken it as far as I can go just by thinking. Back to writing next week, and I don’t stop until I reach the end, no matter what. I’m falling perilously close to the trap of endlessly rewriting the beginning chapters and that never works (among other things, I need the changes at the end to know how to perfect the beginning).
•I reworked Bros Before Ho’s, a flash fiction story that’s been stalled for a while (I knew it wasn’t finished, but couldn’t see what to do with it). It’s far from finished, but at least it’s back in play.
•I took my first look in a while at Thereby Beauty’s Rose May Never Die, one of the top-priority stories I’m committed to finishing in my new 101 in 1,001 goals list. It’s another flash that never worked the first few times so I completely reworked the concept. I think I’m on the right track … but a long way from the station.
•The writing group liked Mage’s Masquerade, so I’ll be polishing it up next week and off to some market by February.
•I sent three stories out this week——which evens out for the three stories I got back. Oh well, it’s early days in 2012 yet …
And now, eHows:
•What Numbers Can’t You Use When Subnetting?
•Geoprocessing With Python
•What Is Spike Coding?
•Web Offset Training
•Encryption With RMS
•Audio EQ Calculations
•What Is Cross-Tabulation Analysis?
•What Is an IP Handler?
•What Is the Kernel Filter Manager?
•When Does Drupal Require Performance Tuning?
•What Is a Queuing Problem?
And now I’m off to get the dog int.