Alert spoilers

I was going to post a second fantasy short story, but the writing is taking longer than I'd like. I guess this is filler, then. Thinking back, I maybe should have worked on some writerly commentary in the same post or in a post after the stories. Maybe I'll fold that into things moving forward.

In other news, the novel I'm working to finish by Christmas hit the 60k mark. For a lot of publishers, that's the threshold separating novels from novellas or acceptable from unacceptable in terms of submission guidelines. It was at chapter 17 that I hit the mark, and the latest chapter spilled it over. Then I took a break, because a new story that came to me crowded my concentration. That doesn't happen normally, but this time it was pretty clingy. Even after I took some notes down, and outlined a bit, it still didn't go away. It made chapter 18 a slog that I will have to return to and clean up. In a larger, horrifying sense, the novel has changed in my mind to something less worthy of being written. I don't know what happened. I was really happy with it in the beginning and now... feedback from beta readers will be right on time. 

Through all of this, the idea of pacing has come up again. Stories having beginnings, middles, and ends, the difference in a short story and a longer one is where those occur, in relation to word count and page number. And also reader patience. The recent story I posted, Blood for the Soil, gave me difficulty early on because I was writing it knowing that there was a novel that related and followed. There was more story, and in the back of my mind I was working to support that and preface it. But I didn't have the same amount of time the novel had, to set things up, to introduce the characters, to get to the point. I suppose it would be like a long distance runner practicing sprints, and coming to realize that they didn't need to hold back their energy nearly as much, or maintain their focus for nearly as long. 

Likewise, this most recent short story, which is also meant to open a door to the possibility of a longer work to follow, is completely different because that longer work has not been written. Not even conceived of, much less outlined or drafted. What I'm doing now is the first steps into the setting, and that has changed a lot. I got to three thousand words, which is ballpark novel chapter length for me, and it felt like it was just getting traction. That drained my confidence some, and the gremlins piled in throwing shade and doubt. 

In a similar way, revising old short stories has been much the same. In Traveler, I realized I had confused the entire crux of the story with convoluted detail. The setting of the in-game universe was far too detailed, unnecessary for the reader to learn about Kojo, his condition, and his quest. Paring all that back felt like it cleaned up a lot, and streamlined the process. For Hybrid Man, I had made the misstep of overlooking the narrator. Charlotte and Griffin were meant to have equal shares in the relationship of the story, but with fresh eyes I noticed that the longer things went, the weaker Charlotte became, and the opposite should've been true. I wasn't very disappointed in where they were when I found them though. But it did feel good to mark my progress. 

Anyway. I guess I'll get back to it.

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