Sunday, March 21, 2010

Keeping Busy

Progress!  I have written another short story.  I won't be posting it here, because I have hopes of submitting it to a few places.  (Imagine if it got accepted - I'd have a publishing credit.  How snazzy!)  Just under 4000 words, so about four times as long as the first attempt.  The first was just a fun little exercise to see what happened if I tried.  This one I took more seriously.  If anyone's willing to offer some feedback, drop me a line.

I've also gotten back to the sequel for Fingerprints.  Wrote several pages, knowing that I was likely to cut most of one scene.  I had to write it to get things rolling again, but as a scene, it wasn't going anywhere.  SNIP!  I hope I can keep pushing forward on it.  It feels like it's a third of the way (or maybe halfway) through, so I'm curious how long it'll end up.

Meanwhile, the day job has plenty going on as well.  State testing this week, which I have to miss my morning classes to administer every day except Thursday.  Seven of my students (including my entire Pre-Calculus class) will be leaving for Europe Tuesday afternoon and will miss the rest of this week and next.  Oh, and I've been procrastinating a final project for my professional development class.

All this has helped a great deal in keeping my mind off the next round of cuts for ABNA (happening Tuesday) and the full I have out to an agent.  I prefer stressing about things I have some (if little) control over.

3 comments:

Marcella O'Connor said...

I read an article about judging this round of the ABNA written by a Vine reviewer. He basically lists all the things he found wrong or really cliche in the books. After reading that, I felt relieved that I wasn't guilty of any of the things and having read some of your MS, I know that none of the cliche things turned up in your book either.

R.C. Lewis said...

I think I read the same article. Big sigh of relief for me. If I get axed, it'll be for something else. Was also happy to see how seriously the reviewer was taking the responsibility. I hope most/all are like that.

Genevieve Graham said...

Doesn't it feel great - that SNIP? Once you get past the first cut, that is. I cut 50,000 words from my (then) 150,000 book a couple of summers ago. Wish my diet were that easy.

I'm looking forward to reading your shortie - too bad I'll have to wait until after it's published!