Gathering Dust

I'd been meaning to reread and tinker with "Sealed With A Curse" since it bounced back from SCIFICTION, but every time I pulled it out, my stomach did a major sink to my toes and my brain screamed, "Noooooo!"

I've done a lot of tinkering with that story. Originally (about three years ago), it was around 20k. I whittled that down to 17.5 before posting it to OWW. That version got an Editor's Choice, but in Kelly Link's review she said there was a lot of fat in the language—and she was right. She also suggested adding three scenes she thought the story needed. Ironically, I'd cut two of those scenes before posting it. I added them back in, wrote the third because I thought she was right there, too, and clarified character issues. I cut a ton of fat and wasted language. Even with the added scenes, I managed to bring SWAC down to 15.5k before sending it out in October. Got the rejection from SCIFICTION in November.

I thought I could probably cut another 500 words by smooshing two scenes together but it wasn't immediately apparent to me how I could do that and still maintain the integrity of the story, so I decided to let it go fallow for a bit while my subconscious worked on the problem and I worked on other projects. I picked the story up again the first part of this year and that's when I noticed the mind screaming-stomach dropping thing for the first time. "Okay," I says, "I guess I'm not ready to work on this yet."

The pattern has continued for months now. I'm not sure if the resistance is because I'm just sick, sick, sick of this story, or if my subconscious thinks it's a mistake to slash it further, or whatever. Whatever, the story's just been gathering dust. I think the chances of selling such a behemoth are pretty slim, but if it's sitting in a drawer the chances are exactly zero. So since my mind/stomach refuses to take the jump, I'll have to bypass that jump and go on to the next.

I sent the story out yesterday to F&SF. I expect my rejection by Monday at the latest. It almost certainly won't grab Joe Adams, and if it doesn't grab Joe, there's no chance of an "alas" from Gordon (yeah, I got the who-does-the-alasing bit wrong). I'm convinced I'll never write a story that grabs Joe, although once I did fail to hold his attention, and one other time I didn't work for him. So sending it to F&SF is a way of checking another tick off my marketing list, but not something I ever seriously consider as a possibility.

Sure would be cool if I was wrong, though.

Things Are Getting Complicated

Okay, Ramona's heading into a whole weird area I hadn't even anticipated. She does what with who???

The thing is, she let me know very clearly that she's tired of being the butt of jokes. Oh yeah, she realizes the comic potential of a woman who owns a chicken ranch full of chickens-as-not-to-be-eaten-pets and suspects aliens keep chicken-napping them. But she's letting me know she's more then a one-trick pony, so to speak. She's got feelings, she's got dimensions, she's had a lot of serious s**t happen in her life and if you'd had the same things happen, you might see aliens around every chicken coop. She doesn't mind a little good-natured laugher, but she doesn't want to be laughed at. Who does?

There's more to her then that, she wants me to know. I didn't realize how angry she was, for one, or how aware she was of what people were saying behind her back. I knew she was vulnerable, even childlike at times, but I didn't realize how much she hurt inside. And I knew she wanted a man in her life, but I didn't realize how much she resented me trying to palm her off on the ex-sailor who runs the donut shop. He's not a bad guy, but she wants me to develop his character a bit more before she'll consider him.

In the meantime, she has other donuts to fry. And she wants me to take her there. I never even suspected...

Don't know where we're headed, but it'll be interesting when we get there.