It’s funny. For the last month my days have been pretty packed trying to contact folks to write me letters of recommendation, studying for the GRE, and being busy for work (requiring me to go in early and do some after-hours activities) it’s very easy to say, “Oh, this is time I could be writing.”

Now that things are starting to decompress a little I have my discretionary time back. I have to make a concerted effort to turn this time into finishing and submitting stories. Yes, I still need to take care of a few pesky things to round out my grad school applications but that’s on a scale of hours, not days. I have a pretty good idea what I’m going to use for my writing samples. So I after a day of relaxing, I need to follow a stricter schedule to get some stories done and out.

There’s a few pieces of good market news in the wake of SCIFI.com’s demise. Polyphony #6 (a great anthology series) is opening for submissions in mid-December and I plan to send them something; and according to the Black Hole response time tracker, “Realms of Fantasy” has brought their response times down within a reasonable level. Since August, the times reported on the site have been under 50 days which puts them ahead of Asimov’s which are tending to push into the 70, 80, and 90-day marks with alarming frequency.

Most of my stories currently in circulation are sort of gimmicky and long-shotish. This is not a profound statement, but editors are usually most interested in well-plotted, briskly moving stories that result in some kind of change in a character. The current crop I have out tend to be short, sort of one-line jokes. I received a rejection from F&SF the other day that basically said, “Interesting stuff going on here, but not really a story. Felt like part of something longer.” That pretty much tells it like it is.

I’ve got one story in a first draft that I need to finalize and post for comments. As of right now, I still like it. Or at least I remember liking it when I finished writing it. There’s another one that’s been critiqued by some of the Clarion crew that might have potential, too. I need to be shipping these to Gordon in a more rapid-fire fashion.

I also haven’t heard anything from Ciacada on my high fantasy minotaur story which, at this juncture, is only a good thing. Cicada takes about six months to respond to sales and about 90-120 days to reject. As of today, I’m at 91 days so hearing nothing means all I know is that I don’t know nothing. The editor asked me to send it to him directly and I hoped this meant it would be somehow fast-tracked, but right now I’m right in the mix for the start of the rejection window and here I will stay until mid-January. Not going to worry about it. Expecting a response (positive or negative) is just too draining to do for every submission. I’m getting better at letting them go and simply saying, “See you when you get back!”

The only reason I bring this story up is that I have a sequel brewing in my brain. I’m not quite sure how the pieces fit together, but it will definitely feature the following elements: first love, pirates, and cherry blossoms. Somewhat alarmingly, ideas for stories in this world keep bubbling up which could lead to a (ulp) Young Adult novel. I have to say, if I was going to write a first novel (and I’m not saying I’m going to) I think a YA one might be a good place to start.

Part of the reason I think stories keep coming to me is because of the strength an as-of-yet unwritten character female hailing from my made-up country of Mursia which, in my mind, is Spain. [Book four in Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series is called "Wizard and Glass" and tells the story of a young Roland going out to the hinterlands of Mejis where Roland falls in love for the first and only time. Mejis is also based on Spain.] I have a love affair with Spain and Spanish culture. (Spanish football too, but that doesn’t factor in here so much.)

Anyway, I have this idea of my idealistic young man from the sticks stumbling into this proud and strong young woman who comes from an aristocratic society, and both of them trying to navigate the adult world that they’ve just entered. One of the things that fascinates me about Spain is the inherently contradictory nature of the culture, and this female character I’ve envisioned brings a lot to the table in terms of story, namely the conflict between her culture that dictates that she must spend time on the road seeing the world and proving herself against all its perils, yet that same culture has strict rules about what women are and aren’t allowed to behave. I’ve read before that good characters create their own stories, and I think that’s what’s going on here. I really have no burning desire to write a novel, just an intense interest in exploring this story and this character. But if the story is novel-length, so be it I guess. I feel like it might write itself at this point.

Of course, there’s whole pesky affair of actually writing the damn thing that gets in the way, but I guess that’s part of the business.

Current Mood – Monday |
Currently Listening To – The White Stripes – “White Blood Cells”