Wow. My loving, supportive wife reminded me I have a website that hasn’t been updated in months. Eight of them, to be precise. Ouch.
Well, in those eight months, I’ve been pretty busy. I took a creative writing course. Read more books on writing. Read more books in general. Listened to books. Held them, smelled them, and occasionally squinted at my screen. And, of course, wrote.
I did fewer short stories, but the one I did really hit me hard. It won another “Honorable Mention” in that quarterly contest I’ve entered a handful of times. I have it submitted to a few magazines to see if they want to publish it, but as usual, if no one wants it, I’ll share it here for free. It is titled, A Life Softly Spoken.
I finished the Not So Mundane Mysteries of Norman Melamourne and decided it was too short and set it aside to revisit it later. I finished Bloodwoven, then rewrote it after some amazing advice. Then finished it again and rewrote it again. Repeated one or two more times, and I’m now on the technical fifth draft, and I love the direction it has shaped towards. For all the rewrites and frustrations that it isn’t “good enough,” it has become a better story with better characters. My hopes to have it finished in January of 2023 fell short, but 2024 is looking like a realistic milestone.
Of Stars Below is waiting on my return, but the third draft will be better for the time apart.
Lastly, I’ve plotted out Bloodwoven’s sequel, Bloodbound, and Of Stars Below’s sequel, Of Lies Above. Ambitious? Maybe. But I believe in my stories and the characters that drive them. And if even a single sentence I might write could bring emotion to someone else, then all the revisions, hours, coffee, and whiskey are worth it.