Thursday Thoughts

Wow, this is (probably) my last post for 2009.

Writing-wise, it's been a good year. In some respects, I'm still treading water - though I'm proud of the sale to GUD and the fact that I'm getting more of my poetry out there - but where I've made progress is I think I've developed a better eye for self-editing. Several of the last few stories I submitted, I made significant changes before shipping them out, whereas previously, I basically did line-edits. (Or maybe they're just inferior stories, but I prefer to think it's a more keenly developed eye.) I've had a perfect record with having rewrite requests accepted in the past six months - every time I've tweaked, the market has accepted it.

I also learned I'm good at proofing and technical edits (grammar, punctuation, etc) for other folks ... and that I like doing it. A lot. The neurotic, picky part of my brain perks up and warbles an operetta. My first project was a highly technical non-fiction work in regards to businesses and healthcare. Approaching these fine details while making sure I understood the context they were in was challenging.

Other milestones ... Flow has received more requests for partials than any other manuscript I've submitted (though no further bites yet). I'm unsure as to whether this is because it's a better query than my previous attempts, or because urban fantasy is "in" and so agents tend to look at more of those proposals ... or both.

I received an "almost" for a story from a pro-level market. Frustrating as anything, but still a good page for my mental book.

I've come into reluctant touch with my experimental side. I'm not "literary" by nature, but after stories like Inside the Box (about what happens to Hope when Pandora fails to release her), Light Off Snow (a Vantage-Point-style story wherein the plot advances by showing the same scene from different perspectives), and the free-write I just finished (the all-dialogue piece), it's hard to deny that I enjoy doing whacky, off-the-wall stuff every now and again. But I don't force it ... it just happens.

And, of course, always reaching for new things - primarily the science fiction novel, which has been an amazing learning experience for me, and sometimes an example of, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." And I have a cyberpunk freewrite begging to be finished at some point ...

No goals - the only things I really want for 2010, I can't control directly. (That would be "a novel contract," yes.) But looking ahead eagerly. Maybe this is the year.