To answer some questions, yes I'm writing things. The past few nights I've been working, but only lightly. I've only written about 500-1000 new words, but have been rearranging some old words. I'm not back into the groove yet, but hope to pick up a thread soon. Might have to skip things. And there's other ideas floating in that I think also need to be handled. So this year looks like it's going to be very confusing and wondrous. Who knows what it'll see.
I feel like I'm holding my breath, and I don't know what for.
Someone sent me a story to critique. I didn't ask for it, but I feel an obligation. hint to new writers, don't send manuscripts for review that aren't asked for (that is, get an agreement before sending the story). This one will be slow slogging.
In other writing news I'm reading the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (Datlow, Link, Grant, et al). I'm skipping a lot of stories. Some that are written well, and I've given them a chance, but one too many "here's a hint of what this story might be about" without getting to the story and I'm skipping to the next on. Really, foreshadowing, it's an amazing thing. Way to many writers too in love with their own words. Now, this may seem like the pot calling the kettle black here, but I get to the story quickly (or I think I do).
There was one story, not a bad story at all, but you're halfway through it before you get to the fantasy part. Considering it was almost novella length (which it seems that most of the stories are on the long-esh side) this isn't a good thing in my book (and there really wasn't any reason to hide it and it could, IMHO, have been brought up front). I did read that one all the way through, the ending wasn't worth it (again IMHO). Decent, but too much fiddling on the edges. A nice action sequence (when we get there), in fact the opener of the action seemed a bit abrupt given the luxurious pace we took to get there. And the final thing, which I just realized, is the story "just happens" to the POV. Okay, he's changed his view of the world at the end, but it was from an epiphany, not from any hard work on his part.
With A History of Lightning one of the repeated critiques was to bring more of the story forward, which I did. Not enough to ruin the main action sequence, but enough to let you know that one of the major characters wasn't exactly as he seemed in other's company. With the new frame of War Stories you get up front (within the first 100 words) that Bobby isn't all together anymore and Fenny isn't as innocent as he claims. And I do that with one sentence.
I almost skipped Jeffrey Ford's The Drowned Life, but fortunately went back and gave it another try (that was mostly because the language was way up there, it was very beautiful). I'm glad I did. He was a bit heavy handed with some imagery, and I'm still pondering others, but at the end I think it was a good story. Given how much I still love Boatman's Holiday, I think my expectations weren't in line for this one.
So there it is. Still writing, no major progress to report. Just slugging away at it day by day.
2 comments:
You'd be amazed how many Flash stories I get for Abyss & Apex aren't speculative.
. . . Or aren't stories, which is almost worse.
Camille, see, that's what keeps me from writing a lot of flash. Some ideas I get just don't make a story. Usually those I look to see if I can make a poem (and I got one the other day, although it maybe a mainstream poem, so far not a lot of speculative aspects). But I've had lots of "scenic" ideas. They're just not stories though.
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