4 posts tagged “shorts”

Between personal stress at home, work, weather, and a few other things, not much work has been done on my own writing recently (note previous entry).  However, I have finally reached the current halfway mark in Assassin's Choice in terms of chapter numbers.  I may be past that in actual word count because there's a huge chunk towards the end of the book that may get cut.  Phoenix Rising also got a nice, healthy word count addition this week--I now have a Friday buddy that I meet with to work on "alternate" projects.  Hopefully meeting with her every week will help keep me on track with it.

In publication news, two of my short stories are now available on AnthologyBuilder.com: "In the Blood" and "Intended".  One of them even received positive comments from the site editor.  I need to update the site to reflect that, I suppose.  ;)

There's little else to post about really.  I'm ruminating a new Meta and considering writing a new article on critiquing (yea, like we all ne4ed another one--but this one comes from something I realized about the crits I receive and how I react to them).  I'm still working on a short, and, yes, it's very odd for me to plod my way through a first draft of a short like this.  I just finished a S. L. Veihl book and have one other novel and an omnibus lined up for me to read.  For work, one manuscript has been returned to the author for round 2 edits, and the second manuscript is about done with round 1.

I did start trying out a new hard copy method for tracking my submissions.  It's going to take a bit to get all the old stuff in the columnar book...and I may end up having to do it all over again because I'm not so sure I like it.  I like the idea of a book and the information I'm trying to keep (in general), but the book is a bit...big.  I'm thinking of making my own template then having it copied and bound at Staples.  We'll see.

And...that's about it.  Told you it's been quiet.

It's been quite a month, with computer meltdowns and other issues cropping up, plus working on an editing project, so time hasn't been what I had hoped.  Fortunately, I managed to save all my writing in the computer mess, though I did lose quite a few other things.  Not as much as I feared, but something important always manages to get lost or mucked up.  In this case, I can't find the codes I need for a bit of software (non-writing related) and can't seem to get a response from the company at all.  I even tried to repurchase.  I'll wait until tomorrow to attempt to contact the company one more time.  If that doesn't work, I'll need to hunt up some replacement software that still works on Win 98 and contact the place that I purchased the software through to see if I can get my money back.  Most my other stuff is saved, but, for some unknown reason, my comp won't access the CDs.  I suspect my CD burner is toast.

A.C. is up to ch5 in revisions.  I showed the earlier chapters to an editor friend of mine and she gave me the thumbs up.  So, the revisions are on track even if they're a bit on the slow side.  They should speed up a little once I get past ch10, which is the last chapter with anything to salvage from my previous attempt at v4 and v5 revisions.  My only concern is making sure the chapters after ch10 have the same tone and polish.  There will be a 6th revision to make some very specific changes and to check for technical errors, then it will go out to beta readers.  Once it's off to them, I'll look at Quest for Ehlarayn and rework it from either the outline or the narrative draft up.

Phoenix Rising is in the outline stage.  I've sorted out 2 of the plot lines, beginning to end.  The people in my writing group who are actually paying attention like the story so far.  I've also reposted Stolen Priest to the group.  The only thing really getting ignored is my short stories.  I have a few new pieces that I need to work on, and a couple of older ones I really should revise, but I seem to go through these phases where I'm so focused on the novel work that anything else is just too much of an interference.

It really is rather surprising how much I have managed to finish all things considered.  I had to reformat, our phone line was torched by lightning, I've been down at least one or two days a week with migraines, storms have kept me off-line for several days, the husband was in an accident -- he's fine but the car is not.  And that's just the major stuff.  Hopefully things will settle down now.  I have more editing projects coming up, and I'm slowly working out a schedule that allows me time for my own writing.  In a month, it will be easier since the kids will be in school (though the daughter and granddaughter will be here).  Not sure when the weather will stop kicking me off-line as well, but hopefully that won;t be too much after the kids are out of the house.

Yes, I've been gone for a bit.  Went to Hawaii to spend time with the oldest and to see my grandbaby born.  I got back March 8th, but have been pretty out of it.  The time change didn't help any either.  Still, some progress has been made, and now I'm pretty much ready to get back into the daily writing thing -- made easier by the fact that I'm taking a break from work.  We don't know how long of a break yet.  I don't want to go back to subbing, but don't know if not working will remain feasible for us, and it's not looking like a full time permanent position is coming my way any time soon.

So, in the mean time, I'm going to enjoy my writing time.

Finished: "Painted"  Submitted it to F&SF.  We'll see how it does.  I have 2 other new stories in progress: "Iris" and "The Reckoning" plus all the old stuff that's still in progress.  I'm not too sure about "Iris", but I do believe that "Painted" and "Reckoning" have a good chance of pro sales.  I'm also still waiting to hear from Hitchcock's about "Cameo."  I'm hoping the delay in response is a good sign.

Under A Blood Moon is moving along nicely.  The notes draft is almost 40k, and I've already lined up a alpha reader.  The timing will be good.  She wants me to wait 3 weeks, which gives me a deadline for finishing the building draft.  She can read it over with all its warts and comment on the story while I add the bits I need to to complete the rough draft, which is the next phase.  I'm still enjoying it immensely, with the exception of the world building.  I'm just not used to writing something where things are still so vague.

I've finally picked up Assassin's again as well.  Because what I've been doing in terms of the revisions hasn't been working, I've dumped v4 and v5 (as far as each of them got -- no more than 10 chapters) and gone back to v3.  I see some compromises in the language coming, but the goal is to reach something close to what I want without taking a week to a full month per chapter.  Good thing this is my learning novel.  Probably an even better thing that I'm determined to finish the sucker, publishable or not.

I'm alternating writing time with house cleanup.  The husband and I have decided to go ahead and do some work on the house even if it is a rental, starting with a deep clean.

All of which makes this a busy, but exciting, time.  I'm enjoying my time off.

Awhile back on Meta, I wrote about how we authors respond to critiques and the attitude that I thought we should take with them.  I rarely see a critique as harsh anymore, but I do often disagree with the comments made.  As the author, that's my perogative.  But those comments can get frustrating when you read them, then read them again when applying them to the story in question.

Early on, I found a way that allows me to take into account what I want to use from a crit without having to reread the comments that don't work for me.  I use green, yellow, orange, and pick highlighters, and a black marker.  As I read through the printed out crits the first time, I go through and mark them:  green for good stuff, yellow for things to consider, orange for more serious issues or issues that are repeated, pink for must change (such as spelling, missing words, etc), I leave comments that don't really help or bother me alone, and I black out anything I don't find useful.  When I go through the piece I'm working on, I highlight the portions readers have pointed out in blue and make notes in the margins (unless it is a mist change, then I make those changes).  My final pass before typing up my changes is to go through the piece myself, highlighting in green and making changes that incorporates what I see the piece needing and anything in the reader comments that I think works.  When I've made all the changes I want, I type them up.

It seems like an invloved process, but it's become pretty much second nature to me.  It gives me time to think about the changes being suggested and allows me to skip over comments that aren't all that useful to me or that frustrate me for one reason or another.  When I'm going through that second read to make notes on the piece in question, I have gotten in the habit of skipping everything that's not highlighted.  And, yes, I do note the positive comments on the piece as well.  We all need to know what's working.  ;)

So, "Painted" has been marked with my reader comments and is now ready for my personal notes.  This story is one of two recent shorts that I actually am rather excited about -- I think "Painted" and a short tentatively titled "The Reckoning" are two of my best short stories to date.  "Reckoning" is soft SF, something I've actually played with before.  But "Painted" is supposed to be Magical Realism, a genre I've always wanted to try, but haven't been too sure I could pull off.  According to the crits, I did pretty good.