At the 50, the 40, the 30, the 30, the 30...

Day one of the weight loss program... for my short story submission. I sent it to two different readers. The first one liked it, but was shaky on the passages I feared would be wobbly. The second one also liked it, but had a lot of questions about what was going on, what it all meant. He pointed out something I could only discover by writing: 2,000 words is not a lot of words. I told him that I felt the prompt of the story had to be part of the whole process of reading the story. So much had to be left out, replaced with pointers to specific bits in the premise. I wasn't very happy with things.

Good news is I did get it down to under the word maximum. That is, unless the title counts as part of the word count. If so, I still have some suctioning to do. Through it all, I still didn't figure out a better way to start it. What's worse, nothing has occurred to me since. Normally these things occur to me with rumination. Sometimes it takes hours. Sometimes days. I told myself, I told you, that I was going to spend the week improving the story. And maybe I felt like I'd be farther along, but I think the truth of the matter is I thought I'd be done today. I set a target, I shoot, I miss. Then I calibrate, which is what I'm trying to do now. The closer to the mark I was in the first place, the easier it is. So, I'm guessing I didn't even hit anywhere on the target. I know that the story could be good, but the way I write seems to force whatever I do to either be good or bad. It can't be mediocre. It's either clever, and thoughtful, or it's confusing and clumsy.

Another day of not even looking at the synopsis for the fantasy novel. I think maybe tomorrow will be a target day to spend some time approaching both projects with fresh eyes. I'm going to avoid a past mistake and not even give a date for when I have in mind to send the fantasy synopsis off. Suffice to say that this short story is the only thing I want sharp enough for submission, so it's the only thing that's going to get in the way, and it will only be in the way, at the longest, for another week. And then... and THEN... and... then...
Well, I guess then I'll write some more... on something. I got some ideas just today about more stories, another book. I wonder if I just started right now, with no sleep or food or time off, how long it would take me to finish it all...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Push, and breach

Image
 Nine months. That must be some kind of record for me. If I was the type to read into things, I might note that it's also the time it takes to make a new human from scratch.  I'm here puzzling through the audio book process, wishing I had practiced better organizational habits. As per usual, I'm learning a lot between sighs, as if the despondent air displaces to make room for the more useful knowledge.  Entering the process, my focus diffuses, like the thrust of a good night's rest striking a solid river boulder. I find old pictures in search of cover art, delete some and make mental notes to share others. I find old files in search of manuscripts, and work briefly on book blurbs. I frown and I groan and I thrash.  All of which to say, progress. My cover artist is graduating college, which is a proud moment. Work on the 6th cover has been delayed for a variety of reasons, and ultimately I take accountability for some of it as well. The edits have gone poorly, most notab
Read more

The imparting or exchanging of information

Image
 I talked somewhat about how good the communication has been between my cover artist and myself. That's probably an oversimplification, because his posts on social media really outline how much he works on all aspects of his process. This refers to how hard he works, but also how well. This next cover will be the sixth cover of eight, and I feel very fortunate that we've been able to keep things together for years at this point, given the consistently increasing amount of opportunities that he gets, year after year, as he earns more exposure and recognition. I feel very confident I will be one of those people who might say "I knew him back when," and people may not even believe me.  In regards to process, things were very sloppy for the first cover. Our language wasn't very synced, nor did he have a great idea of what he needed from me to begin producing, nor did I have a way to really understand how my own words percolated into his artwork. I showed a potential
Read more

Let's play a game

 I've discovered there is a point where even Facebook will give up on you.  I last posted in February. I guess around March I was reminded that I hadn't posted in a while. Maybe I got another reminder in April, but even then, I could tell that the robots were fed up. I would've been, too. I wasn't sulking; I might have even questioned what the use would've been, but that would've just been untrue. It's virtually impossible to say why, but for whatever reason I had a mysterious, steady few periods of royalty payments. I got an email from Amazon, then another, then another. I found it all very suspicious, and strangely was too busy with other work to really pay attention. I took a diligent moment to thank my luck, be grateful for readers, and then went about trying not to drown at my new job. I didn't think at all to blog.  And that's not why I'm writing now, either. I'm writing now because a thought I had been gnawing on for months, years, fin
Read more