Kaiju Story Being Dropped

I've made a decision to drop Kaiju Story for now. I've read the reviews. Some were favorable, some were not. There was a lot of conflicting information. But it pointed there were many fundamental problems with the plot and characters that couldn't be resolved in simple revising. It's like three stories in one - documentary, science fiction, and horror. The beginning does not match the end. And moreover, I just got annoyed with the story itself. I didn't want to waste time polishing a turd when there were more interesting things to write.

And it's not because I'm done with Black Hole Son, because I started on Old Dragonslayer Story and that one seems exciting, even if the reaction was more lukewarm. Kaiju Story was an attempt to write something marketable that I was not necessarily interested in (well the big idea I was interested in. I just had no story to go with it). The revising would be more arduous than normal. And this should be fun--I'm not getting paid for this (yet).

This marks an unprecedented move for me. I've never thrown away a short story since I started writing them (although this isn't really throwing it away--I can always come back to it). It takes one away from the stories making the magazine rounds. But even the best writers have attempts that miss the mark. I remember Gaiman once having to apologize for not delivering to a anthology because the story "crumbled to ash in his hands and couldn't be salvaged". So it's better not to dwell on fixer-uppers and move on.

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