Sunday, December 28, 2008

bad dreams

I got my first response from an editor in about a million years, and it was an acceptance! That's a nice change. My story "Shortcut, with Traps" will appear in Beyond Centauri next summer.

That story was inspired by a dream, and I am very leery now of dream-inspired stories. "Never Be Alone" was inspired by a dream too, and I can't give that damn thing away (never mind that it's 13,000 words long). But "Shortcut, with Traps" is less than a thousand words long, a humorous fantasy story with fun science fictiony elements, so it doesn't make any sense that I'd have spent so much effort on it. It was the last story I had critiqued at my old writer's group, Pittsburgh Worldwrights, and I must have done half a dozen intense revisions since then. I'm glad it's found a home so I don't have to fool with it anymore.

I'm not sure why, but this afternoon I opened Stag in Velvet and just started cutting. I've cut more than 6,000 words already and moved some stuff around, and tomorrow I'll cut even more drastically. It feels good.

9 comments:

Jameson T. Caine said...

Congrats on the acceptance! Cutting stuff can be both liberating and scary at the same time, almost cathartic in the heat of the moment.

Aaron Polson said...

Huzzah! Revisions are fun. I've dedicated the rest of my vacation to revising some old stories and making them fit to leave the nest.

K.C. Shaw said...

Jameson--Thanks! I've got to do major cutting from this book, so I'm hacking off whole subplots. It was over 130,000 words and I've got it down to about 124,000, but there's a lot left that has to go.

Aaron--That's a good idea! I'm off until Friday, so I can get a lot of revisions done before the end of the year!

Jamie Eyberg said...

Woot! Hope you have a good week off.

K.C. Shaw said...

It's a nice change to have a real vacation instead of just a day or two, that's for sure.

Cate Gardner said...

CONGRATULATIONS! What a fabulous way to end the year.

K.C. Shaw said...

Thanks! It's not a big huge exciting sale, but it's still a lot better than a rejection.

Carrie Harris said...

Woo hoo! Yay for the acceptance!!!

K.C. Shaw said...

Thanks! It was a nice way to finish off the year.