Words of the Barely-Published

Two rejections in three days. That's a bit closer together than I really want right now. Bother. I'm aware that the editors know their clients better than I do, but I'm now feeling moderately depressed about it.

Part of it is that the stuff that I like I can't seem to declare a "finish" on and send out, while the stuff that I don't care as much about goes out and collects rejections...which makes me think that maybe I shouldn't bother sending the good stuff around.

This is uselessly defeatist of me, and I'm aware of that, but it still sucks.

I gave them Easter Lilies because I was so frustrated with the durn thing I was ready to chuck it out the window. And, like the fabulous, marvelous, creative people they are, they said, "Nonono, it's not ready to chuck out the window yet, yes, we see that there are problems, here are some *useful questions* to ask yourself."

I haven't tackled the rewrite yet because I am fighting off the mighty "it's raining outside why don't you just have a nice nap" beast and I'm losing - but.

Maybe I can rescue that story yet. And shave it. And paint it purple and put a little bow on its tail. Or something.

Durn story.

F&SF rejected "Trickster's Wish" yesterday - I don't think I'm ever going to get anywhere with them, but I keep trying...

...anyway, it went back out to a hopefully-more-receptive publisher this morning.

I've been trying to get somewhere with the first draft of "Easter Lilies" but it's just not wanting to play at all. I'm very grumpy about it. Almost grumpy enough to refuse to show it to BRAWL. :/

The fabulous Margaret gave me *second* crits on Trickster's Wish (she is a kind, kind person - you should read her books and short stories while we wait for mine to come out) and this morning I finally got enough crap cleared off my to-do list that I was able to finish applying said crits to the story.

It is now in an envelope, with stamps and a SASE in it, ready to go off to F&SF for rejection. And I even have a pretty good idea of where I'll send it when it comes back.

So. Good 'nuff. Time to go edit Imaginary Angels so I have something for BRAWL this month!

(Goodness, it's very wet outside today. The walk to the postbox may require tea.)

I sent Sufficiently Advanced Printing off to Asimov's today. I expect I will get rejected and then I really will have no idea where to send it. It has too much magic for me to expect much luck with Analog, and there doesn't seem to be much else out there that's a good fit. Sadly, I remember looking at Ralan's when I was in college and just out of it and being completely overwhelmed by the breadth of places to submit short stories...

...that's not there anymore. Especially for a fairly generic Techno-magic story.

Fortunately, BRAWL has reminded me that they all had this sort of sucky period where they sent crap out regularly, and I can't say that I've been terribly regular about it. So it isn't entirely my fault, except that I've been lousy about doing my research and sending the stories OUT. If they're not out and in circulation, they won't get published.

So, if they come back, I'm only allowed to let them languish if I've tried absolutely everywhere I can think of to send them.

Right.

We'll see how long *this* resolution lasts... :/

(It would probably help if I were better at writing short fiction.)

GLEE!!

When science meets fiction in a fantasy story, science usually wins unless there's a lot of handwavy magic going on, which doesn't work so well in urban fantasy all the time. However, my fiction appears to be dovetailing perfectly with the science which I didn't even know was there. Hee hee hee.

I need to do some more research, but I may just have been handed a really spectacular thingy.

No rejection letter yet. Probably tomorrow.

(Of course no rejection letter yet - I've already figured out where I'm sending it next!)

Today was a beautiful, beautiful day. I thought I was going out early, but ended up ambushed by a nap where I dreamed about writing with a friend of mine.

Mildly inspired by that and the beautiful weather, I girded on my lumbar pack, complete with laptop, trekked down to my favorite pub, got a couple of pints of hard cider, and started writing. While I had been walking, as it is a bit of a hike, I'd been thinking, "I want to write a short story about the protagonist from River's Wath, preferably set before Iron Debt, just so that I can establish that she has been Doing Things." I started thinking about what she might have been doing, and since it's a proper walk, I had enough time to come up with something of a premise.

About 2000 words after I started, I realized there was a wait at the door for seats, so I got up, picked up my laptop, and went over to my favorite local place to get chocolate, and got mocha and a chocolate croissant, and wrote the rest of it. It clocks in at about 3400 words, which isn't bad at all for not having even had a story idea when I started walking.

It's still in first draft format - very, very rough - but Easter Lilies and Imaginary Angels is now written. This is the very first story I've ever written in a single go, which is quite startling to me.

There will be a great deal of editing, I suspect. But I'm not unpleased at all. Or as one of my friends who makes things for a living says on a regular basis, "I'm not embarrassed."

Short story, rewrite after BRAWL got done with it. I basically tore it apart and am redoing it.

It's at 2400 now, and it was at about 1900 when I started tonight. Good enough.

I'm hoping that it's gonna stay under 3000, assuming I don't decide to do more exposition on what happens After. We'll see. I need those two middle bits done.

I spent my spare time visiting a friend in hospital instead. He's out now, and I'm mostly caught up on the rest of my life which was also put on hold for the duration, so I hope to get more done on Chapter 6 this week.