Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Blatant defiance

Just so you know, I was up until 1 a.m last night finishing a story that I've been working on, off and on, since 1998. Granted, it just sat there a lot of time in the intervening years, but there was a great deal of rewriting, remodeling, restructuring and rethinking the story along the way. Last night I buckled down and wrote the one, final flashback scene that I'd realized the story was lacking. Although I'm not entirely convinced that I got the characters' voices right, the section is polished enough not to torpedo the whole story. I can always tweak it a bit later if an editor thinks the need is there. More importantly, though, I noticed a glaring continuity bungle in the other flashback scenes this one ties into. Big blunder on my part, stemming from not clearly thinking through the timeline. Fortunately, it was a fairly straightforward one to correct, but again, it kept me up later than I'd normally like.

I fully expect this one to garner a lot of rejections before it ever finds a home. There are several reasons for this. If I had to blurb it, the story's sort of a mutant hybrid of Enemy Mine and Jack London's "To Build a Fire." Except, of course, that it's not really like either of those at all. Oh yeah, it's 13,000 words long, a length that'll have editors simply lining up at my door.

Knowing that a particular story is going to be rejected is something of a liberating feeling. Much better than the letdown that comes when I write a story that I know is perfect for a market, and that market unceremoniously declines it. Doesn't stop me from submitting it, though. That sucker shipped out this morning.

Now Playing: Violent Femmes 3

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