Here we are, another month gone by.
I just finished the second draft of my short story by the skin of my teeth (literally finished up the final edits before posting this update). I had some kinks to work out and some changes to think through that meant I didn’t get into the third draft like I originally wanted to. Also, I have a busy life, blah blah blah. You already get it (I say the same thing basically every post).
I’m feeling even better about the flow and the setup of the story overall with these new second draft edits. I don’t think its perfect (what story really is to an author?), but it’s getting much closer to “acceptable”. It’s now sitting at roughly 11,300 words and 43 pages (so I trimmed it down a tiny bit). I’ll likely do at least one more passthrough and send it to a few beta readers before pulling the trigger on submitting it to magazines.
Now, I’ll address this post’s title. Or lack thereof, as it were. What what.
Yes, the short story still does not have an official title. I have one that I really like (thank you, Devin, for helping me brainstorm and suggesting this particular one), but I don’t want to reveal it until I get some feedback. Once I have a couple people read the story, I’ll tell them my suggested title and see if they like it, if it makes sense, or if they have any other suggestions. Again, I’m terrible with titles and I need all the help I can get. I have no doubt I will announce it with next month’s post.
We’re moving into even more holiday festivities and family time, so I’m hoping it won’t put too much of a damper on getting the story submitted. My goal is to submit it to my first magazine by the end of the year (most magainze submissions I’ve researched don’t allow multiple submissions at once, so I’ll unfortunately have to wait for a rejection before moving on to the next submission). If I can get a quick third draft done, that shouldn’t be a problem. Then again, I was confident I would have the third draft done before this post, so you never truly know, do you?
I’m pretty excited about this story. It’s a tight little narrative that opens up a new futuristic world I may or may not plan on writing multiple short stories within (including some potentially recurring characters). I have ideas for future stories, but no specific plot outlines yet, so it may be awhile before more stories are introduced in this universe. It’s got me excited to come back to it though once this one is polished up and ready for the public. And after Soulformer, of course. Or if I need another small break from Soulformer in the future.
I wanted to take a second and remind everyone reading this that you have the opportunity to read this short story once it’s ready for magazine submissions. I’m not promising it will be perfect or that it will even be the final draft, but it will be a good taste of my writing style and how I like my stories told. If that’s something that interests you, all you have to do is go to my blog home page, scroll down to the bottom, and sign up with a working email. Once I’ve got it ready to go, I plan on sending out a copy to anyone who is subscribed with an email.
Again, as a reminder, I unfortunately have no way of contacting “followers” of this wordpress blog. If you have a wordpress account and have followed my blog, first, thank you so much. I really appreciate your support and it is mildly frustrating that I can’t contact you directly through this method. Second, if you would like a copy of the short story once it is finalized, feel free to subscribe with an email in the method mentioned above or go to my contact page and submit a message with your desired email.
Thank you all so much for indulging this little passion project of mine. I’ve always enjoyed writing (in fact, I used to get in trouble in class as early as 7 or 8 years old for writing stories in my notebook instead of paying attention), and it’s fun to bring that love back in my life in this small way.
Until next time!