Sunday, May 24, 2015

You must submit!

...If you want to get your share of writing rejections, the true sign of a persistent writer. This month, I submitted a short (1600-ish words) piece of fiction to a nice lit mag.

 I'm determined to keep working on the edit of my first novel, The Fall, and Further Fall, of Miriam Bronski-- but also to submit some of the other work that I have been finishing and polishing, that is piling up all over my hard drive. Especially as Bronski is going to be a long haul.

 As I recently re-embarked upon the edit, I had a crazy burst of clarity that showed me that I did not in fact have a full first draft (as I'd been telling myself), but a really long draft that was missing about 8 years of the MC's life, and 8 important years at that. This chunk of life will have to be written, now.

 Aaaand to do it right, I kinda need to visit Syracuse, NY, and Cincinnati, Ohio. And do some other research. And I need, at some point, to figure out exactly how the non-linear timeline works for this. So, major work still happening with Bronski.

 I've found I need to periodically distract myself from the main effort by knocking off side projects, so I have a few other novels and a dozen more short stories that I mess around with, and the occasional bit of poetry, odd essays, and of course songwriting. I'm glad I have a critique group to run my stuff through the gauntlet before submitting-- if you don't have one, find one or start one. It's really helped me to keep plugging away.

 I'm even thinking of submitting a short piece to Asimov, because why the hell not?

 Wish me luck!