Well, it's been a long time since I posted here. Work and writing have been overpowering me, but really, that's no excuse, is it?
For writing, I have a new project going--more on that in the next post--and I've managed to sell/reprint some stories:
1) I have some news about Realms of Fantasy . . . but I'm not allowed to tell you. Yet. I will soon. (Because who can resist blowing their own trumpet? Even if it does give you backache and make you go blind?)
2) Ellen Datlow picked HARRY AND THE MONKEY for her upcoming anthology Best Horror of the Year, from Night Shade Books. (Also on Amazon.) This is quite a big deal for me, seeing as how I have been buying her anthologies for a while and not ever thinking I'd get in one.
It's also kind of worrying, however, as I really have no idea how I wrote that story or why it came out the way it did.
3) I've finished a bunch of short fiction . . . but most of it just makes me go meh. Of the ten or so stories I've finished, I reckon there's probably one good story, one that's worth saving, and eight that range from weak to instantly forgettable. Still, a 10% hit rate isn't all that bad. Roald Dahl published around two shorts per year, so I read somewhere.
My goal at the beginning of this year was to try to submit one short story per month. As it turns out, that entails a whole crap load of work. It's not just drafting one short per month (which isn't that hard, really); it's the revision, rewriting, editing and whatnot that take up the time. Of the stories I've written this academic year (running from September 2008), two have been sold (but I can't tell you about them yet, shhh!), and the rest are circulating dismally.
Looking back on it, I think one short per month is too much--at least for me. I don't have the number of ideas necessary for a decent short fiction output. And let's be honest, it's not as if short fiction is really paying very well these days. (Which leads me on to my next post.)
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