I just mailed off my short story Waffle Shoe Wake to The Georgia Review. It’s always an exciting thing to do. Lots of expectations and hopes, tempered with the reality that I face a lot of competition.
There’s a part of me that just wants to podcast the short story and put it up here for everyone to enjoy. But to do so would sabotage its chances of being published. So I am practicing patience and trusting in the process. I’ve set a reminder on my calender for May, so that if it’s not picked up by The Georgia Review, I will know to submit it somewhere else.
In a few weeks, I will begin work on another short story. I have no idea what it will be about. I’ll be tossing around ideas until it’s time to start writing. As I think I’ve mentioned before, my goal is to write (and edit) one short story a month, then submit it to a market. At any given time, I may have three to six stories submitted somewhere.
At the same time, I need to be working on my novel The Skinless Girl. Last week, I took a hard look at scene goals, conflicts and outcomes. It’s something I still struggle with. But mastering this will make my longer fiction stronger and compelling. It is a crucial part of structure and without it, the story devolves into a series of random events.
Recently, I switched creative writing software from Anthemion’s Writer’s Cafe back to yWriter. With the release of yWriter 5, it now has the functionality that I need from it. I still tend to use MS Word for the actual writing, but the other software helps me keep track of scenes and characters, as well as the story arc and subplots. Writer’s Cafe was good in a lot of ways, but there was a steep learning curve and some awkwardness that I eventually tired of.
P.S. I gave my website a facelift. Your thoughts?
I like your title, The Skinless Girl. Very nice.