Sunday, December 30, 2007

We hates waiting, hates it, precious

I just realized that I haven't received a reply--yea or nay--on any submission since the middle of November. That was an acceptance ("The King's Messenger," which will appear in the next issue of Renard's Menagerie), which is nice. But I have (*counts*) seven stories out and seven novel or novella queries (for four projects). I'd like some closure here, please!
It's the holidays, of course. Everyone sort of shuts down in December in publishing, it seems. Hopefully after the new year all those editors will start the new year right by making a dent in the slush. In the meantime, I need to be writing. And I've sort of semi-shut down over December too. Except for some halfhearted revisions to Jack of All Trades and a few thousand words added to various short stories, I haven't really written anything. Time to add another new year's resolution, I think:

Write at least 1,000 words every day.

To help me along, I just discovered (via Elizabeth Bear's blog) the Novel in 90, an LJ community basically for posting daily word counts. The goal is pretty obvious--a novel in 90 days. And they're starting a new round with the new year, so I'm just in time to jump aboard. Only I can't decide which project to go with.

I'm brewing up three projects right now, but none are really ready to start writing:

Charmed Circle, a novella fantasy/detective story set in an alternate-world 1920's London--a little bit of research required, but I've written in this world twice before. Main characters are sketched out, plot is starting to take shape. This would be an ideal project to save for this year's NaNoWriMo, though.

(tentatively titled) Katie Cruel, a fantasy novel set in a world I've written about before. Main character sketched out, main story arc more or less decided on, but no details settled beyond the first part of the book.

untitled urban fantasy/mystery that needs a lot of worldbuilding (and plotting) before I can really do anything with it. Main characters sketched out (sort of) and setting decided on, but that's pretty much it.

Of the three, though, the last one is the most saleable. Urban fantasies are hot right now, and I think I have an interesting twist on the fantasy part. But I want it to be a full-fledged mystery as well as a full-fledged fantasy, so I really, really need to get cooking on the plot.

That's the problem with writing, really. It's a time-consuming process even for a fast writer, and as I've noted before--I'm really impatient. To the point where, faced with a dilemma like the one I have now, of which project to start writing in two days, I'm likely to give up and go read a book someone else wrote.

But first I have to finish this damned story I'm working on. Also, the dog is staring at me.

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