Of stories that is. Not the mannish looking chic from the Matrix movies in the tight black leather. no, definitely not that.
Just finished the first draft on my third story from the "Great Resumption" and I'm actually very happy with it. I was able to use multiple third-person viewpoints, as in the story is told in the third person but the focus shifts, and I like the way I was able to break them up. I need to give the story a day to sit and kind of percolate, so tomorrow I likely won't be working on anything unless I get some feedback on my second story. It seems that something about 30 pages long takes a bit to be read. The waiting is aggravating but I'm getting feedback for free so I really can't complain.
Speaking of aggravating, I'm still waiting to hear from EDGE on my Tesseracts submission. It is now officially a week after the stated deadline they posted for when they would get back to people. I'm hoping this means they're having a hard time choosing and that I have a good chance of getting published. If not, well then I'll take whatever feedback, if any, they give and either dust off the story and try elsewhere, rework the story and try again, or consign it to the dustbin of history and move on.
Amazingly I have no shortage of ideas right now. There have been at least two nights in the last few weeks where I've woken from a dream and had to write down details right away. Also, I have ideas for novels burning in the back of my brain. Heck, I have ideas for series of novels burning in the back of my brain! A part of me wishes I could quit my job and write full time, but right now that isn't feasible. Aside from the whole starving to death in a back alley thing, I'm close to getting off contract and in full time with benefits. So, stable work with good benefits versus living day to day on what I can bring in on my unproven talent as a writer. Yeah, I'll stick with the job to pay the bills for now.
John Scalzi has a great piece on Whatever about authors and financial issues. The points he makes are something I always trying to keep in mind. Basically it's the same points my parents made years ago anytime I mentioned the idea of becoming a writer, but don't tell John or else he may feel old, and he can't feel old because he's not that much older than me! Article can be found here.
Well, that's all for now. Hopefully I'll have some good news soon. At the very least I should start writing about what I've been reading. Hmmmmm.... I did just finish a book by David Weber. Maybe I should write a review on it this weekend. Not a bad idea.
K.M.
ReplyDeleteJust think of the day job as paying for your writing. That way you can honestly tell yourself that you're being paid to write only your boss doesn't know that.
I know what you mean about having more ideas than you can handle. I keep a notebook filled with ideas for shorts and novels. My problem has never been coming up with good material, nor have I ever suffered from writers block. Instead, I tend to start a novel, get about half way through, and turn to some other idea, leaving the unfinished draft to molder in a file.
But I've made a solemn promise to both myself and my wife that I won't do that ever again. I'm in the home stretch of plotting a novel now with plans to start writing it in Feb.
Good luck to both of us.
D'oh. I typed K.M. and meant K.W. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteNo worries. I'll just make K.M. my Bizzaro world name. :)
ReplyDeleteI've done the whole start something and then get distracted thing, or I've just gotten so frustrated getting the words out of my brain that I just quit. This time around when I decided to start writing again I waited two months before starting so that I wasn't just doing it as a flip decision. I also went out and started actively researching the craft more than I had in the past.
Good luck with that novel. I hope to see it in stores someday. :)