Two More Out

Took a “mental health” day off school today (hence my Iron Man viewing).   I also managed to get a couple more stories submitted.  I got my rainbow-themed story (title fluctuates) into the queue at Clarkesworld.  That rejection will be back by Friday.  I also got L.R. out to a Pill Hill Press anthology called Zero Gravity: Adventures in Deep Space.  They say they are looking for “intergalactic warfare, space pirates, alien races, space opera, space colonization, super humans, space horror, parallel worlds, etc.”  I added the underlines for the stuff L.R. has in spades.  This may be the one.  Small pay to be sure, but Pill Hill Press had an endorsement from another Codexian.  I am hopeful.

So, six stories out.  Not bad.  It makes up for the slight stall I’ve hit with the novel.  Honestly, I know where I’m going, I just don’t want to nickel and dime my way into the next chapter.  I need to record a big chunk of words at once, preferably the whole chapter.  It’s a transition and will intro several characters.  I need two solid hours to work.  That’s hard to come by around here,

I still have a dormant story or two, but everything reasonably close to being submission ready is out there (or sold).  I still have a religion piece that really needs to be harvested for parts and made into part of a bigger story.  Oh, and a story about exploding soldiers that needs a similar treatment.  Both ideas I plucked too green.  Dangerous habit. I also have some really old pieces I retired: a genetic engineering piece, a dialog-only story…I don’t remember what else.

It’s an odd sensation, knowing everything that has a reasonable chance of selling is on the market.  I don’t think I have ever experienced that.  Some of my earliest short stories are still out there in new forms, one even on hold at ASIM.  I try never to give up on a piece, but a few are just beyond hope…for now.  But now my future as a writer is all inside my head or will be one day.  There is no back burner story to be edited and released into the wild.  They’re all out there.  My breath is held for the little ducklings, but I need to lay more eggs.  This makes the novel seem like an extra-huge gamble, one big story to get out there in the time I could be writing several.  But it’s time to be a big boy.  Odds are, if the novel is good, it’ll sell before the last duckling does.  For now, I wait.