Well, let's give a little update on where we're at, here at the start of the new year.
I'm on the home stretch on revising Black Hole Son - about 40-30 pages to go. I'm in the exciting climax, which is fun to write. I was making fair progress on eliminating words, until I felt like Character B's stand-off scene needed something more to it. Otherwise it was over too quick, and the impact would be lost. It's now ambiguous whether I'm going to get below 140,000 words. C'est la vie.
After I'm done, I plan to alternate days between working on my short stories and walking. The holidays were not kind to my belly, and since I stopped walking, the cholersterol is slowly building back up (not that I have high cholesterol - every time I go to the doctor, he keeps saying 'don't come back'). So I need to do a little exercising, and I think keeping healthy is an essential part to writing. I developed a lot of ideas for Black Hole Son walking and letting my mind wander. I need to do that still, I figure. Especially with Mermaid Story coming up, and I still don't have an ending.
Speaking of short stories, Avatar is still in limbo, still at Hud, but the min rejection time is coming up, so I'll let you know when that comes in. That's the only short story I've got out there now, so I'm hoping I can get more done this year.
I'm not going on Critters for a while. I'm not sure if its the increased workload, or my own distaste for the awful stories there, but I can't collect a good critique for someone. Not compared to the one's I'm getting. I find myself repeating the same shit, and I can't even hold my interest. I can't dedicate the proper attention to it. The fact is no one's paying me for this, and you get what you pay for, so I don't expect anyone to complain about my crappy critiques. But I'm only doing this for my own stories, and my ratio is high enough to take a break for a while.
Speaking of Critters, my last story, "Fairy Kingdom" went through the queue. That's my last short story, so it's good that BHS is winding down. It looked like opinions were split, which is good. I didn't review these as thoroughly as the others (see above), nor did I thank everyone. I was most surprised that I got so many reviews for a 500 word piece worth half-credit. Some of the critiques were longer than the piece. This is why I don't get Critters. People invest more time in it than its worth.
Finally, in the holiday card this year, I mentioned I was working on getting some short stories published (the heretofore mentioned "Avatar"). I mostly did this to fill space, and so it wouldn't sound like it's all about the new baby (not that there was an old baby). Now I'm thinking that may not have been a good idea, since now people are asking about it. The aunt who I never see asked me about it in their holiday card, and now I'm thinking "what did I start". I'm afraid everyone's going to ask me what I'm writing, and can I see it. This automatically invites judgement on possibly non-publishable work. It's embarrassing to show people stories when you're unpublished, because you feel like a kid writing a story about sleepy bears. You're forced into a situation where you have to be humble and they force themselves into a situation where they can't give you an honest answer. Of course, this is a topic for another entry.
Coming up, more video game memories, and "Author plays Bioshock".Labels: Black Hole Son, Critters, video games, worrying, writing