July 02, 2002
Rejection
"Midsummer" came back today, after six weeks. I'm not surprised, but also not pleased. This was a form rejection in the truest sense of the word. Enclosed in my package was an 8 by 2 strip of paper with badly photocopied 'thanks for sending it, but it doesn't meet our needs' on it. And a blank line for comments. Ah well. Now I can just pop the manuscript (which doesn't look like it was touched at all) back in the mail tomorrow. Up next, F&SF, where I'm expecting a quick and dirty rejection from VanGelder's assistant. I could be wrong, but...
Summertime, and the livin' is easy...?
Okay, so June was a sort of vacation. Everyone takes vacations, right? I'm back in the saddle again, especially since school started last week and has given me some structure to work with. I think I have more going on right now writing-wise than is really smart, but what can I do? I can't edit ALL the time, and the only story idea I've got seriously percolating right now is the second novel. What started out as a cyberpunk-ish idea is turning into a hugely epic, socio-political novel about an unwilling religious leader. It's tentatively titled The Edge of Heaven, but you know me, tentative titles usually turn into the real thing. Right now I'm working on trying to outline the novel, but I'm also poking at part of the manuscript too, just to keep from getting bored with the outline. I have a notebook set aside for this project alone (another first for me, to do so much work longhand) that is slowly being filled with glossaries, place names, characters, and character histories. I realized yesterday (and, scared, confessed to Julie), I think I may have material for a trilogy here. A science-fiction trilogy even. Hold me, I'm scared.
Still working on edits for The Host. Right now I'm still reading through the whole thing in depth, making grammar and wording changes, looking for story holes and inconsistencies. Once done with that, I'm going to start the second draft from scratch, retyping the whole thing in. That should be fun. Right? Right?
And then, of course, I still have two stories I'm kicking around. Finished, but... not happy with either of them, and not sure why. They'll be simmering a little while longer, I think.
Oh yeah, and did I mention I'm back in school fulltime...?
