A Sad Day

Tonight I opened up my folder of current work and found it needed some organisation. So I created a new folder titled 'Submitted Stories' and moved everything that is currently out in the market place into it.

That didn't leave a lot in my WIP folder. In fact it left a manuscript currently titled Voodoo of which I've only written the first two chapters, and may or may not ever return to. It left the AKL folder. My paranormal YA romance outline. Two old stories I was always intending on revising. One story I wrote as an assignment but thought it might be able to find a home. And Spoilt Rotten sitting in the corner acting, well, spoilt!

I opened up one of the old stories and got down to editing. I managed to get to the end of the third page before I threw my hands in the air in disgrace. Did I really write this rubbish? And did I really make so many mistakes? I mean, who finishes a dialogue sentence with a comma - and no tag after it? Did I really think there was something wrong with full stops when used inside quote marks?

I really did know absolutely nothing.

So I retired those two stories (EULA & Confused Love) to the archives. On top of them I placed my rose-coloured glasses. I always thought I'd find a market for EULA, but now I realise the story wasn't any good, the idea is, but the story isn't, so one day I still may sell the concept in another story.

I returned to my current work folder - Spoilt Rotten wasn't even looking at me anymore. AKL. Voodoo. YA outline. And Mr Gregory's Goods & Groceries (MGGG), the assignment story. MGGG is only a smidgen under 1200 words so I did a quick edit. I added a bit of narration, tidied up a couple of things and surfed over to Duotrope (I love having my net connection back). I found a mainstream exposure market which was accepting things of this nature, and sent it out.

Back to the current work folder. Only AKL, YA outline, Voodoo, and the brat left.

A quick switch over to my market list at AHWA for a dark market. Spoilt Rotten has been released once more - after a quick edit where I changed a minor point highlighted by Steve down at Tasmaniac Publications (thanks Steve).

Now I'm left with only Voodoo, YA outline, and AKL!

I don't have a single short story in the works. I have a couple of good ideas, but I've jotted those down in my ideas file and left them there. There has been no first drafts or outlines or anything else done on the shorts front. And I still don't have a new idea for the Festive Fear antho :c(

I've already said Voodoo is probably living on borrowed time.

That leaves AKL, the YA outline, and my diploma work.

How's that for clearing the decks?

A little sad about retiring works, and also sad that my WIP folder is just about empty, but I refuse to dwell on things. I shall take this as an opportunity to push ahead and complete this semester's assignments and get a huge amount of work done on AKL. The YA thing has to wait.

Let's see how long the ideas folder stays shut...Time starts now!

Drinkers - aka Dark Rose

It's done. Dark Rose (as Drinkers is now called) is ready for market. A couple of subtle changes from the last revision and she is now ready to be unleashed onto the Australian market. Cool.

I've also written the first draft of a new short story. I know I said I wouldn't be writing anymore new ones for a while but this didn't start out specifically as a new short story. A couple of assignments ago, I had to write the first 600 words of a descriptive short story. A day or two ago, I received information for entering into a local short story competition. My next assignment requires me to use a 600-800 word, dialogue rich, fragment of a story.

For the last few days I've been pondering what to write for the short story. I'd already decided I would use an 800 word fragment of another story I wrote, sometime ago called "Confused Love". In this assignment I need to provide a draft and a good copy. I figured my old story would suit that bill as I'd only written two versions and it definitely needed further revision to be useful for the assignment.

Then I had an idea. I took the first 600 words of my assignment from a couple of weeks ago and expanded the story that my lecturer thought I may not be able to expand upon. True, I changed the focus and the direction a little - well, a lot actually. In the end, I came up with a dialogue rich story that also fits into the word limit of the local competition. So, in writing this story, I've achieved two things - 1) I have an entry for the competition, or will have once it's been polished and 2) I have a piece to work with for my assignment.

Sweet!

* * * * *
In response to a comment I received from Karen, whose first line of the comment goes like this: "It would be interesting to read some of your stuff on-line."

Firstly, thank you for the interest Karen. Now, I currently have a number of examples of my work available. To view pieces I've had published electronically please visit my bibliography. You will find links to everything I've currently got floating around the net in there. None of it is dark fiction however. I also have a couple of examples of my early work listed here. One is my very first effort at writing a short story. The second is my first effort at entering a contest. The contest piece is dark fiction.

They are early efforts though and I've improved somewhat since then. I have put them there as reminders to myself of where I came from.

So why don't I post some of the later work I keep writing about? Because I want to get paid for it. If I post it onto my website or this blog, I'm giving away my first publication rights. Why would an editor want to pay me for a story everyone can read for free? I won't do it. Everything I write will one day turn up on my website - promise! But if I can sell it a few times first and make some money for the effort I've put into it - I should be entitled to do so.

So, if anybody wants to see examples of my stuff, have a hunt around my website. There's plenty there; from a drabble published by AntipodeanSF - to my 600-word start to a story included in my application for enrolment into my diploma. I'm yet to expand on that one. One day...

Thank you everybody for reading. It's nice to get the occasional comment, too. It's also nice to see little red dots popping up all over my counter map. People from all over the world now visit this blog to partake of my ramblings and occasionally to visit the website. Although the website doesn't get updated as often as this blog, it does contain a lot of stuff writers of any form of fiction will want to know about. I encourage all of you to visit at least every now and then.

Well, that's it for Mother's Day, 2008. I hope every mum out there received wonderful presents and had a great day - like I said before, you all deserve it!

Good luck with your submissions.

BT

Eye Opener

I have just finished reading through some of my earlier work. "An Ill Wind" and "Confused Love". The first was originally written in July 2007, the second in August 2007. The premise for both is pretty good although "Ill Wind" (as in "ill wind" - might need to come up with another title that looks better in electronic print) is a stronger, more disturbing piece (or at least could be). "Confused Love" has been sent out to market once and came back with the comment of the reader not being able to really get into the story. "Ill Wind" has been critiqued by one individual some time ago with comments such as "All in all, a pretty good concept and certainly a tale that could be extremely riveting. I just think you have a lot of polishing to do on it."

After rereading them tonight, I'm left shaking my head and wondering whatever convinced me to let others see this work. I have been working hard on "Drinkers" and Too Late the Rain" recently and have done a number of revisions before releasing them to others. I up loaded the latest version of "Too Late the Rain" to Critters earlier today, even though it was originally posted on the queue nearly six weeks ago. It's due for crit next week and although I'd made changes, I didn't want others to see work of mine that I felt to be inferior.

Now the self doubt kicks in. If "Confused love" and "An Ill Wind" need huge amounts of work and I now realise that nearly 12 months down the track - what will I think of "Too Late the Rain" and "Drinkers" 12 months from now? Are they really as good as I think they are. I once thought the earlier two stories were pretty good too.

In the end, those I ask to critique my work and the market will be the true judge. As writers we continue to learn and to grow in our craft. The down side of that is when we look at old works, we instantly see the bad points, the silly structure we employed, the strange use of words.

I banished my self doubts by resolving to rewrite "An Ill Wind" and submit it to it's target competition before April 15th 2008. I have a month to seriously improve it. So be it. "Confused Love" will be turned into the script that it was originally thought up as.

"Drinkers" will be critiqued again next week as will "Too Late the Rain", then both of those will be going out the door. "Drinkers" to Midnight Echo and "Too Late the Rain" to the latest AHWA competition.

I will get additional writing credits from paying markets this year.

I hope you manage the same.

Good luck with your submissions.

BT