Reporting Back

I just realized that I haven't reported on my crazy August plan for writing. If you didn't catch it the first time, click here.

The plan was to work on three short stories. One of them was mostly finished, the other two were in the rough to second draft stage. So not too stressful. Or so I thought. This is apparently what happens when I think too hard.

The first story, the one I thought was the closest to being finished, is now dead to me. I've rewritten the dang think four times, and the first chapter another three times. It still sucks.

Well, no, it doesn't suck, it's just not great.

A few months ago, my mean editor friend ripped it to shreds (which is her job) and told me the story didn't work for my goal. I needed to show the characters in a different light, having a fun adventure in their homeland.

Lalala, not listening.

I pretended she wasn't right. Figured I could tweak what I had to work. Which didn't work.

Sometimes I really hate her.

On the other hand, a friend of mine, quite successful in the Indie realm, actually told me that I should just toss the story up on Amazon. Who cares if it's not great?

Uh, I care. Which may or may not be a good or bad thing in the long run, but for now, that particular story has been put in time-out. The reason being (after my mean editor's comments and me trying to fix it) that too many of my beta readers said, "I don't really care about your characters until the second or third chapter."

Of a six chapter story.

Great. Just great. The whole point of these stories is to push people toward the novels that the characters are in. So I grumbled, tried to fix it again, and then tossed it over my shoulder and have ignored it for the past four weeks. Lalalalalala...

The other two stories went better. One is almost ready to be put out, and the other is in a solid, second draft stage. I need to do my own revisions on it and then beg for more beta readers. I wanted to have them ready to be put up on Amazon by the end of this month, but that's not going to happen. Maybe for Halloween.

Good idea. I'll see what I can do about that.

Technically I failed in my original plan, but August really propelled me forward. I got stuff written, I decided to write another short story for a horror anthology in a totally different style than my usual (it's in round 2 and going well so far) and it planted the seed for the craziest writing plan I've ever tackled. Ever. It's going to be awesome. Stay tuned for updates!