Double Bummer

Well, the month is not shaping up as I had hoped. I got two rejection letters this week. Main Street Rag said "no" to Udopia, and Allegory Magazine turned down my short story "Tarantulas On Leashes." 

The former offered no feedback, which they are not obligated to do. But the folks at Allegory said: "First exchange of dialogue with Sybil may have been a way of showing social ineptness but it didn’t add much to the story." That was the purpose of that bit of dialog, so I think I want to keep it. But I'll take their comment into consideration. Perhaps I can make it more relevant. They also said, "Some adverbs could’ve been eliminated or replaced with descriptive phrases." I definitely will heed that advice.

On the bright side, I just finished Nightmares. 65,000 words, which is perfect for YA fiction. It's the first run-through, of course, so I have some editing to do. If I had to guess, I'd say I'll probably add 5,000 words. Not that I'm trying; it's just what I think. We'll see how close I come. But I believe I'll be able to wrap it up by December.

Of course, to put it in perspective, a very good friend of mine just lost her Dad. So in the grand scheme of things, I really can't complain about my week.

Write on!

And Now For Something Completely Different...

...well not completely different.  But I've been posting this week about our experience at the music weekend at the Century Inn. I had planned on finishing up that joyful sonic tale, but this just in:

I completed Udopia! Really!

In a previous post, I said that I had finished it, but acknowledged that what I meant was that I had managed to join the beginning and the end. The literary golden spike, if you will. 

So the past couple of weeks have been an exercise in filling in the gaps, correcting glaring errors, and embellishing. And I have filled, corrected, and embellished to my heart's content.  

It's just north of 39,000 words, and covers 81 pages. I have two weeks until it's due in the inbox of the Main Street Rag. I plan to tap my buddy Bill (though he doesn't know it yet), an experienced newspaper man like myself, to proofread and edit.

Two weeks ago, I felt as though I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now I'm out of the tunnel, and chuffing (sorry, I read a lot of Thomas these days) to the station.

Woo-hoo!