I think it's ok to post this, but I'm going to confine it to this largely-unread blog until I know for sure, then I'll post it to Livejournal: "The Unattainable" has sold to Cecilia Tan's anthology Cowboy Lover: Erotic Stories of the Wild West. It'll come out at the end of April from Thunders Mouth Press.

YAY!

Labels: erotica, sales

About 1500 words on a new story, one that started out as a joke comment in Hannah Wolf Bowen's livejournal (and whose origins actually came from one of Nick Mamatas' posts on what not to submit to Clarkesworld Magazine). It's about a girl who's a tongue. Yes. That's it, that's the "twist", and it's right up front. She's a freakin' giant tongue.

But of course, there's more to it than that - since she's a tongue, she has no tongue of her own, so the story is really about the "father" who's adopted her, and it's about other things. That's all I'll say about it - the more I explain it, the more mundane it will seem. And this isn't a mundane story. I hope.

I'll submit it to Clarkesworld when it's finished, and then to ChiZine. Not sure where else, then, after those two.

And no, I'm not titling it "Speaking in Tongues". Gah!

In other news, I should be hearing about "The Unattainable" (the erotic cowboy story) sometime in the next couple of weeks. I'm crossing my fingers, but not holding my breath. I'm experiencing a bit of "other writer envy" right now - it seems so many other writers have already had at least one good sale or bit of good news this year. Other than my reprint sale to PseudoPod, it's been dead silence over here.

Labels: short story submissions

I don't know why writers always talk about how great it is to write the last chapter or last scene of a novel or story. For me, it's the worst part, because just as I'm reaching the end, I start to realize how many things I fucked up in the previous "xxx" pages. It usually takes all my self-control to push through to the end, and not start revising and chopping away, or simply abandoning the whole mess. I'm now at the last scene of my novella, and sweet baby jebus is it all such a craptacular mess. But if I don't make myself write it, I'll never finish this damn thing. And I want it done and outta here.

In other news, I have good news, but I can't blab about it yet.

And last: I thought for about 1/8th of a second about writing a pirate story for one of the many kajillion piratey projects floating out there, but that was as far as it got. I have no desire to write about pirates. Pirates don't interest me. Now, if someone wants to create an anthology about scientific/exploratory expeditions to Pacific islands, African countries, or Hyperborean climes that go horribly awry, I'm there. Pirates? Not so much there.

However, in that 1/8th of a second, I did consider rewriting my trunked steampunk novelette "The Girls of the World" into a steampunk pirate piece. It already has ships and water and hostile takeovers - plus, I'm lazy that way. Making it a pirate piece won't work, I realized, but it did give me an excellent idea of how to fix it. So maybe there's some good to contemplating pirates, after all. Arg!

Labels: revising

While my big ole much-loved Clarion story is currently crashing on the rocks of what will probably be another rejection, my previously published, kinda ignored flash short "Brimstone Orange" has been accepted by PseudoPod, who will miraculously turn it into a spine-chilling podcast. I swear, this story just won't quit bringing home the good stuff. And most of my Clarion instructors thought it kinda sucked. Hee hee!

Labels: reprint sales

Last night I came home to find the contract from Senses Five Press for my story "Jetsam" - I know this sounds stupid, but I always get a thrill when I see the actual contract for what I've sold. I never got contracts as an actor. I got a phone call or email saying "show up for rehearsal", and I did, and after the rehearsal process and the play was all over with, I was sent home. No contract, usually no payment - nothing to show that I was in any way an artist of any worth or value*. I can tell you that for all the hard work so far, I'm far more satisfied with what I've accomplished as a writer than about 99% of what I accomplished as an actor, and parti of it is because I can prove that there's some worth to what I do.

The first erotic novella is finished, but as I started the second novella, I realized I need to switch them around - so #2 is now becoming #1. Ugh. That means I can't send the finished one out yet. However, I think this is for the best. The current WIP is much easier to plot and write, I'm discovering, so I'm hoping to be done well before the end of the month.

Stories, on the other hand, are a bit problematic. I find that I start a story, then put it down somewhere in the middle and walk away. I don't think that's indicative of writer's block or needing to "rethink" the plot - it's just bad writing habits. So, I'm going to be a bit more strict on myself as far as how long it takes me to write a story. I'm going to be "Clarion strict" - no story should take me longer than two weeks to finish, no matter if it's 1000 words or 17,000 words. If that means the first draft is a bit rushed and patchy, so what? I can spend plenty of time editing and polishing, but I can't do either of those things if I never finish the damn thing to begin with.

So, my goal for this weekend is to finish the story I started in January - that's about 2-3000 words more I need to write on it, which is completely doable. Besides, I should be happy that I have something that is so obviously going to keep me from having to clean my apartment.
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*And I found out I wasn't: there are six billion people on the planet, and 5.5 billion of them think they're actors. The other .5 billion think they're writers, of course.

Labels: writing business