A monster of a tale…

This morning I finished writing a short story I’ve been plucking away at since 2015 but haven’t touched since 2017. I think at one point I submitted a clearly unfinished version to a friend for one of his anthologies, which he rightly pointed out. It’s something I realized I had to do to get back in the writing groove, last month, so it was good to get it done. It’s another story that is from various vantage points, which is something I’ve realized works very well for my style of fiction. I especially like the idea that different people know different things, and so assembling such stories is like putting together a puzzle. Sometimes this can work in macro, and sometimes micro, which is what this one was. It also allows me to juggle the scope of the story, where I can pull out dramatically as a kind of commentary, or dial in closely. 

Naturally I began thinking I could definitely put together another short collection with it and various other works, although first it’ll finish out its run at my writing blog. I’ve still got a lot of interesting things just sitting there waiting for a permanent home. 

Dzanc you very much...

This week I found out Dzanc Books was not going to be honoring In the Leviathan in its longlist, shortlist, or distinction of actually winning its 2023 novel contest.  And that's okay.  I'm going to keep looking for publishers.  I may revisit the utter lack of self-publishing I've done this year (except for Liz & Pepe, the 2023 Christmas collection for family I just pushed through a moment ago), or who knows?  I have some poetry collections I will probably definitely continue releasing, now that I think of it (and this reminds me that what I should be doing in the minutes ahead is write more of that)...

I of course also want to get back into the actual business of writing, which of course occurred recently with Liz & Pepe (a short work, but the lead was, like its predecessors, generously of novella length), which I kept procrastinating as more of the relevant details surfaced in the thought process.  While I found it easy in recent years to meander through writing projects, or barrel through some or parts of them, I've been in a different mode for much of this year.  I was happy, most of all, to have written Leviathan, which was satisfying on a number of levels, and while I quickly came up with new projects, knew there were older ones, and how I could improve those older ones, I didn't feel the urge to jump on them as I thought I might.  

Sometimes being rejected by a publisher or a contest will plunge me into some form of obvious depression, but that didn't happen this time, which was also an encouraging sign.  It would have been awesome to have a different result, but it was also nice how quickly Dzanc made its deliberations and announcements, and actually quicker than I was expecting.  I would've loved to have been able to write in the pages of Liz that I have a publishing contract for the first time ever, but it was also nice to not be able to, if that makes sense.  

The journey continues.