I’m still plugging away at writing the sequel to RealmShift and the first draft is nearly finished. I know I said that before, but it was nearly finished then and it’s still nearly finished now. A hundred thousand words and a hundred and ten thousand words are both nearly finished for a one hundred and forty thousand word document, right? Right! So get off my back. No, I’m not touchy or anything. In actual fact, it’s closer to one hundred and twenty thousand words now and the one forty total is an estimate. I promised myself, after the recent traumas back in the UK around the turn of the year, that I would revise my first draft deadline to the end of June and stick to it. And I plan to do just that.
But along the way I’m still working on other things. The life of a writer is a busy one, usually with many projects on the go at once. I’ve spent this week catching up on some of my short story writing and I’ve submitted three different short stories to three different publications (online and print). It’s important to keep these things going and writing short stories is excellent practice of the craft. Writing a novel is a whole different kettle of writing fish, not to mention a shockingly mangled metaphor. Writing short stories while working on a novel is a bit like going for a jog in between weight lifting sessions at the gym. It’s all important and getting too focussed on one thing can be detrimental. Yeah, I’m a Personal Trainer by day; it’s showing in my similes.
So wish me luck with the submissions. Like any writer, I could paper my house with rejection slips. Not that I have a house. Being a writer, I can’t afford one. But you get the idea. We learn to live with the fact that just about every submission will result in a rejection, but on those rare occasions when a piece of work is accepted, it makes it all worthwhile. We’re a thick-skinned, masochistic lot, us writers. I’ll let you know when the rejection slips arrive.
Best of luck with those submissions, Alan.
Writing short stories is harder than writing a novel, in my opinion. No, it doesn’t take as long, but every word counts and sometimes it’s difficult to weed out the fluff. Short story writing takes talent.
I hope you’ll let us know when the acceptance arrives too.
Thanks, Karen.
I agree, novels do tend to be fluffier than good short stories. I suppose that’s the beauty of novels – almost unlimited room for extra fluffery.
I’ll be sure to let you all know of any developments as they occur.