Like I Need Another

short story to write, that is. I just finished drafting "The Sound of One Child Crying" and was getting ready to make a major push on "A Brother's Love" when I come across a listing for an anthology of stories set in the Appalachians and dealing with magic. And now I'm thinking of how I could write a steampunk story, sort of along the lines of The Music Man but with a magician who thinks it's all flummery to better con the marks, but maybe there is some real magic in the world, whether supernatural or merely metaphorical.

At least the deadline on it isn't until June, and it looks like the editor isn't going to be making final decisions until sometime in July, so at least it's not like I've got to immediately plunge into it. So I can make a few notes and let it simmer.

But I'd really like to get back to work on Briar's Children, because I am really a natural novelist, and short stories don't come easy to me. Not to mention that novels are really where the money is.

So Much for That Plan

I thought that I would be able to do one last polishing pass through one of my Okeanos novels and then send it to a publisher. However, when I sent it to some people who hadn't read it before, the response was very negative, and they basically want it completely torn apart and redone -- and they don't like several of the fundamental premises of the world.

So it looks like I'm going to set it aside for a while and continue working on Briar's Children, in hopes that a simpler storyline in a less-complex world will have a better chance of making that critical and so-difficult first sale. Which of course means having to get it moving again, since I seem to have gotten stuck while I was at Archon.