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Tired, happy
May. 16th, 2008 06:17 pmSo, this nice LJ place led me to finding out, a few scant weeks ago, that there will be a Sword & Sorceress 23 anthology, and that it would be accepting submissions for a brief time. Ending today. And I had this story idea that seemed to fit, that I'd even written an opening scene for a while back...and I've been wanting to write something where I'd planned the whole thing, and I had a paragraph-length narrative for the plot, so I determined to find my notes and the opening scene.
But then, one of the cats had fleas, and....well, life happens, you know. Teen-ferrying and grocery shopping and all that.
Well, I found my notes, but not the story fragment. So finally, I gave up, and made a new start, and pushed through very quickly to the planned end of the story. And then slept on it, and decided it wasn't quite the end, a denouement was needed because of details that I'd added--details that I liked, mind you. Oh, and the most exciting part was all in the wrong order, at a point where the character's understanding of what was going on was changing, so I couldn't just cut and paste paragraphs, I had to keep some of the phrases where they were, but apply them to different events. Arrgh! So I shuffled, carefully, and rewrote, and sought comments from my sister, whose job as an attorney was keeping her insanely busy, so I didn't get them. So I reread and rewrote it, and slept on it and started reading it before going to pick up my kid from a ball game, and almost got so caught up in it I didn't leave when I needed to--a good sign, I thought. So, last night I again polished it, and a friend who broke up with his girlfriend offered to read it, tho he gave me minimal comments (but they were positive ones, despite the story being far less dark than the stuff he usually reads), and I read it aloud, all the way through (nothing like that to help you catch where your edits added extra extra words or out necessary ones!) and liked it ,so, I sent it off today. Well, OK, I changed a few words today too. But now it's officially done, at least until I get a response from S&S.
Just under 5000 words. Rewrites and all. In less than two weeks, squeezed into the rest of my schedule. Wheeeeee!
...
Gosh, I hope I still like what I wrote when the story in my mind has faded, leaving me with only the words on the page.
But then, one of the cats had fleas, and....well, life happens, you know. Teen-ferrying and grocery shopping and all that.
Well, I found my notes, but not the story fragment. So finally, I gave up, and made a new start, and pushed through very quickly to the planned end of the story. And then slept on it, and decided it wasn't quite the end, a denouement was needed because of details that I'd added--details that I liked, mind you. Oh, and the most exciting part was all in the wrong order, at a point where the character's understanding of what was going on was changing, so I couldn't just cut and paste paragraphs, I had to keep some of the phrases where they were, but apply them to different events. Arrgh! So I shuffled, carefully, and rewrote, and sought comments from my sister, whose job as an attorney was keeping her insanely busy, so I didn't get them. So I reread and rewrote it, and slept on it and started reading it before going to pick up my kid from a ball game, and almost got so caught up in it I didn't leave when I needed to--a good sign, I thought. So, last night I again polished it, and a friend who broke up with his girlfriend offered to read it, tho he gave me minimal comments (but they were positive ones, despite the story being far less dark than the stuff he usually reads), and I read it aloud, all the way through (nothing like that to help you catch where your edits added extra extra words or out necessary ones!) and liked it ,so, I sent it off today. Well, OK, I changed a few words today too. But now it's officially done, at least until I get a response from S&S.
Just under 5000 words. Rewrites and all. In less than two weeks, squeezed into the rest of my schedule. Wheeeeee!
...
Gosh, I hope I still like what I wrote when the story in my mind has faded, leaving me with only the words on the page.
