Words in Progress

I’ve been on vacation from the dayjob this week and it’s been lovely. But I’ve let the blog slide. I owe you a Monday Morning Music, there’s a book review I need to write, and it’s time for another update on my writing. Let’s do that one!

There’s been a lot of writing the last little while. Editing, too. I’ve made it to chapter fifteen on The Travelers and that’s been an interesting process. One of my main characters has been slowly coming out of his shell as I work on this, and last week, he decided to completely rewrite a scene I had him in, which then made it necessary for me to completely rewrite the rest of chapter 15. I do my editing by hand, so I now have several new pages covered in red and blue ink and really need to type them up so I can make sense of them again. There are lots of arrows and stars and circled scenes marked with directions to move them somewhere else.

So, yeah, typing is in order.

There’s been a lot of short story work, as well.

New unnamed story in process–I may submit this to an anthology with a deadline in June. Not as quick a turnaround as has been happening lately. Sentient plant life and an old woman as protagonist.
The new untitled horror story from last month has a name now: “… But Names Will Never Harm Me.” It’s out for submission right now, too. Speaking of stories out for submission, there are two others currently in the wild. [ETA: and just got the rejection slip on this one.]
Still waiting to hear on “Buccinum Anningiae.”
I did query the magazine I’d submitted “Piper Deez and the Case of the Clanless Woman” to and never heard anything, so I withdrew the novelette from there and submitted somewhere else.
Almost ready to submit “Meanwhile Inc.” again. I’ve tightened it up (dropped 80 words from 6000) and am feeling pretty good about it. Hopefully, the magazine I want to submit it to will feel the same.
And… “Mind Over Murder” is back home from its first adventure outside. Due to creative differences with the editor, I took it back. That was a surprise, and a story I won’t go into here, but so it goes sometimes.

I think that’s it right now. I have two other stories I need to rewrite, but I won’t add them to the list until I actually start working with them again. What have you been up to?