And mowing the yard, but not with as much enthusiasm as I anticipate the writing and the quiet.
In the span of a couple days, my inbox filled up with slush for Fear and Trembling, now that the online horror magazine is open again for submissions. However, being behind on my own material, I probably won't wade through the slush till next week. Don't be discouraged, however, if you have scary short stories or poems you'd like us to consider; they will be read.
I took a little break in brainstorming the other night, and scanned a few unfinished stories. One, temporarily titled "Eban's Crossing", is a bit of fantasy I need to finish for my oldest niece. Another, also with a temporary title--"Costano"--is the beginning of a novel that intrigues me, because it's an alternate, fantasy version of Rome during the Renaissance/Baroque era, the main characters are artists and architects and accused heretics, and, though I know the ending, I don't know what's going to happen between the opening chapters and the final scene. Then there's The Anachronist, the space station murder mystery that stumps me, not because of the murder, but because I'm still learning about the structure of the legal system in the futuristic world in which the story occurs.
This weekend, however, will be devoted to furthering Episode 8 of Thieves' Honor, and perhaps working on Dragon's Bane, which is shaping up far differently than I first envisioned. But that's the fun of writing: envisioning a new world, then being transported into it, where anything can happen.
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Hey, there are still only two chapters to the "group novel" project in the F&T forums (John Kuhn wrote the first, I wrote the second). Click here to read the existing chapters, and maybe add your own. Let's see where the story leads!
Also, if you'd like to volunteer for Fear and Trembling, editor Scott Sandridge has put out a call for five more slush readers and two assistant editors (one for columns, one for poems).
5 comments:
fwiw, I'm making good headway on chapter three of the collaborative novel for F&T. I've studied what's gone on before, and have some ideas on how to advance the novel by one more step for the whoever comes next.
Furthermore, I'm finally writing the next chapter of The Adventures of the Sky Pirate after being stuck there since October. Whee!
Sounds like you've got a host of interesting stories you're working on. From the snippet you wrote, The Anachronist sounds very interesting. And how is it editing for that emag?
Phy - Whoo hoo! I look forward to both chapters - the scary one, and the science fiction one. Ain't it great when the wheels finally get unstuck? When that happens, I feel like I can write forever.
Alex - Yeah, I have a lot of unfinished work lying around, but when I'm stumped with the current piece, I go back and work on other projects. Keeps me somewhat limber, in the literary sense.
As for helping out at F&T, sometimes it's great fun, when the stories or the poems are well-written and interesting. Sometimes, I feel like I'm slogging through literary soup, looking in vain for a tasty morsel. I'm only the slush reader, though, and I proofread/copyedit; Scott's the editor, and he makes the final decisions.
I was intrigued that one of the minor plot points in the recent film "Knowing" by Alex Proyas, and starring Nic Cage, features a closet and a haunted character. It was a critical plot point, and I was immediately reminded of this collaborative novel. It was kind of eerie, really, drawing comparisons and contrasts between the two stories, sort of meta-eerie, eerie on a different level. It was as if Proyas was showing his own take on what was in the closet, and why.
I've gotta see that movie! The schedule's full, though, dang it. (I'm still at work now, printing off reams and reams of pages that will be compiled into a book. Cool stuff, but tedious process.)
I'm waiting for the chapter. (taps foot pseudo-impatiently)
Actually, I need to finish my own writing stuff, too. Maybe I can get some slush reading and some writing done while babysitting the printer.
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