Points of view and logic, which is not a tweeting bird…

Bonus points for anyone who gets the quote in my entry title. 

I check my Amazon sales stats occasionally and just noticed that Thaw is now available for the Amazon Kindle!  I’m assuming this is something Iris arranged, and I’m grateful for it.

 While I wouldn’t really want to publish in an e-book only format, I think multiple formats are fabulous as they give readers choices.  I don’t really like to read on the screen (though the Kindle does look pretty cool) but lots of people do. 

In other news, I’m almost done clearing out my backlog of completed stories.  I’ve got 11 in circulation now, up from 2 in January.  Chapter 11 of Fim is nearly done, but I’m going to do some serious rewriting before I move that story arc forward because what I have doesn’t really work for me – I’ve lost the feel for the character, and I’m trying to move her in a direction that she doesn’t want to go, but must.

I’m going to continue behind WordPress’s version of a cut, because this is mostly for me.   Don’t read if you care about some vague spoilers in an unpublished book.

Just a Spring Clean for the May Queen

I can’t believe I’m using Led Zepplin lyrics as titles.  What’s next, the Grateful Dead?  *headdesk* 

“Blossoming” went out yesterday.  “Stepchild” will follow today as soon as I can come up with a new title.  The old one is too revealing of the plot.  It’s not a ‘shaggy dog story’ per se, but I really don’t want the reader to know the outcome of the plot from word 1.  I think I’m going to go all out and send it to F&SF – I doubt it will get past the slush reader, but it’s worth a shot, and the turnaround with them is wonderfully rapid.  Town Drunk after that, I think, since they reopen on 2/15 and I like that market.  The world needs more light and less doom and gloom.  You wouldn’t believe the number of short fiction zines that have the word ‘Dark’ in the title.

I also made a good start on cleaning out my files.  It took four long hours, but I managed to go through all my WiPs, the completed novel files, the bunny files, everything.  I deleted duplicates, moved a whole lot of stuff to the trunk, and in general did a spring clean on both my laptop and PC.  Of course, this morning I remembered that I also had a bunch of writing-related stuff in the Documents file, so just like real spring cleaning, when you think you’re done, you see more dirt…

 Finally, I got a nice fan letter on Thaw yesterday – the only quibble the man had was the degree of angst, and I have to admit, he’s right.  That book has fandom written all over it in that regard.  I’ve come a long way, which makes me somewhat reluctant to really approach prepping Ashes for submission, as it’s like, ’ahead angst factor 12.’  I’m thinking a serious rewrite, or maybe just forget it altogether - I’ve said what I want to say in that universe.

Back in the saddle, I hope

I achieved writing yesterday.  Have no idea how it happened, but something, possibly John Scalzi’s great post on money for writers, provided the ass-kicking I’ve so desperately needed. I got off the laptop, went into my office and started to make some sense out of my short stories – checking markets for resubs, dealing with the multiplicity of versions that have erupted like mushrooms as I’ve moved between my home PC, my laptop, my work PC.

 And then I opened Dreams of Houses and re-read it for the first time in a year or more.  It’s not bad.  Actually, it’s damn good in parts, abysmal in others, and is altogether publishable with some work, I think.  Dreams is a modern Lovecraftian gothic set in a house that’s essentially based on Westover Plantation .  It’s amazing how much clearer I can see what needs to be done to it after letting it sit so long, and how less attached I am to some of the scenes that really have to be axed.  It started as a novelette, then was rewritten into a novel (much like Thaw was), and what works in short form is not necessarily what works in a novel and vice versa.