Echoes in a Hollow Space

The Rewrite progresses.  I finished chapter 12 yesterday, and that leaves only 22 + Epilogue to go.  =:0  As is usually the case when I'm firmly committed to one piece of writing, other pieces start singing their siren songs to me.  "Oh, you'd much rather be working on me."  Usually I am able to regretfully but firmly decline—even though some of them grow quite insistent as time passes. 

When I was working on the last half of the first draft of Shivery Bones I kept getting insistent calls from a young woman named Hortensia, star of my novella, "Hortensia's Man," currently up on the Online Writing Workshop: http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/

She insisted that her story was important and needed to be told, and even though I agreed with her, I explained she'd have to wait her turn.  She wasn't satisfied with that, even when I did the historical research for the story hoping to appease her.  I begged off writing by telling her I couldn't start her story until I'd finished that research.  It didn't work.  She kept insisting.  I let her out of the box on weekends sometimes, but she never wanted to confine herself to weekends.  Still, over a six or so month period, her story did get told.

After I finished the first draft of ShivBo, I took about three months off.  The first month, April, I was busy getting ready for my trip or actually being on the trip, but I let the muse know that if he was so inclined, I was open to suggestions.  Nothing.  So I worked on stories from the trunk for about a month and a half, revisiting stories I hadn't looked at in over a year, refining and reworking.  I did another big chunk of work on a (still) unfinished story called, "The Green Ones."  Even so, nothing new tickled at my brain; none of the stories in my Ideas file decided they were ready for the next step.  I decided it was time to seriously launch into the rewrite.  Of course that's when all the new kids decided to move onto the block. 

First up was a story inspired by one of my own blog entries.  Which is somewhat like picking lint out of one's own navel, but whatever.  That story, "Green Horse Bone" gushed out about 1400 words in a few days, weaving in and out of the rewrite, before going on hiatus.  "Okay," I said, "you got that out of your system, now it's time to focus seriously on ShivBo."  I did, but GHB continues to weave in and out—dribs and drabs here and there when my back is turned. 

Then the Muse started playing an old, favored trick on me.  At night when I lay my weary head on the pillow—always on nights when I have to get up early for work the next morning—the Muse launches sneak attacks.  Just as I'm thoroughly relaxed and beginning to drift off, blam!  Into my head pops a great opening line for a story that's been sitting in the Ideas file stewing for awhile.  I'm just at that stage of tired where I really don't want to get out of bed again, but these openers are killer, the obvious gateway to the good stuff to follow.  And I know if I don't jot them down, they won't be there when I wake up.  I keep a bedside notebook so I roll over, sit up and jot.  Surprisingly, when I wake up the next morning, these openers read just as well as I thought they would.  I type them up and put them in the story folder for later when I have time to expand upon them. 

Last night was one of those nights, only it wasn't just an opening line, it was a whole opening sequence that presented itself for a story I've been cogitating over for a couple of years:  "The Story Shaman."  I groaned, rolled over, sat up.  Both sides of a handwritten notebook page is almost always about 250 words.  When I'd written both sides of the page and started on a new one I reminded myself that I had to get up early and it was getting late.  I was able to go to sleep then.  That reminder—and sleep—wouldn't have come unless I'd finished for the night because if I don't get it all down, I just keep coming up with new stuff and have to get up again and do more jotting.  The Night Muse does not care if work comes early and inspiration comes late. 

Fortunately, when I do sit down to write those stories, those openers (even if I don't use them for many months) open the door and let the story flow through.  Openers are crucial.  If I make them up with the forefront of my mind, they don't work.  If I let the hindpart loose, they usually work.  Sometimes I do have to rewrite those, but they are more likely to stay in the final drafts.  The forefront openers almost always have too much preamble, don't get into the story fast enough or with the right vision or voice.  Voice is a particularly key component of these hindpart-generated openers.  I know how to tell the story then, whenever I take it up and go forth.

Which is why it's worth getting out of bed.

Hmm. I may have to come up with a story to go with that title.

Anyway, I've been trying since Friday to finish a story I started in November '02. Today could be the day! But we'll see. Every time I get to the last jump, it refuses and goes around to some new material that I didn't know existed before. But it's close, damned close, and I thought it was worth delaying the novel rewrite a few days to get it done. This story is called The Green Ones, and it's a contemporary horror comedy with science fiction overtones—in other words, my usual cross-genre mess. It hasn't got great literary merit (in fact, it may actually have anti-merit), but it's been enormous fun to write. It has a kick-ass, bitchy heroine and a truly goofy premise. So we'll see if it's fit to post after it's settled for a month or so. And after I've finished it, of course.

I haven't worked on it steadily all this time, naturally: three or four bursts of concentrated energy followed by long hiatuses (hiatusi?), my typical work pattern. Which is why I prefer to say my unfinished works are on hiatus, not abandoned, because eventually I get back to them. Sometimes years later, but I get back to them. In fact, after I'd concluded earlier last week that Ramona was going on hiatus I decided to finish out the week by working on more short stories before heading into the massive rewrite process of Shivery Bones. So I turned my attention to an old story, The Horse My Father Rode, and cleaned that up a bit. I dunno about that one. It has some good elements but I'm just not sure it works. It is most definitely not a comedy and I'm just not sure about it. However, way back in the misty days of yore I sent it to a lit magazine and got my very first encouraging personal rejection from an actual editor, so there's something there. I'm just not sure what or how much.

You know, an encouraging acceptance would really be welcome at this point in my non-career.

So I've hauled out the xerox box filled with the draft of Shivery Bones plus all the reviews. (Yeah, I'm so un-Green for not keeping everything electronic, but I just need to edit on paper. Sorry! I do recycle the paper once I'm through with it, though.) I haven't actually pulled anything out of this xerox box yet. I keep looking at it out the corner of my eye and shying away like a horse mistaking a hank of rope for a snake. This rewrite process could be ugly. The finished first draft is just over 151k. Ugh! I foresee a whole lot of cutting in my future. That's okay. It'll be much better without the excess. I don't mind revision on novels so much. It's torture for me in short stories because I always wind up horribly confused about what should stay and what should go; what tells too much and what not enough. Somehow I don't have that problem as much with novels. It's much more obvious to me in a novel context what should stay and what should go. Novels, of course, have their own methods of torturing me, but that's another story...

If you're listening, Jon, my confusion may have something to do with discovering the theme prior to writing, which I don't do. That doesn't nail me in novels so much because with a work that long I think trying to force a theme up front can queer the whole deal. In a novel the theme tends to reveal itself over time and, for me at least, is much richer for that journey through my psyche. That's not so much the case with shorts, but since I'm incapable of saying, "This is the theme," and working from there (tried it several times, failed miserably), I guess I'm screwed.

And on the Go-Ahead-Reject-Me-I-Don't-Care front, I got my "no grabee" for Sealed With A Curse from Mr. Adams at F&SF as expected on Monday—this Monday, not last. The delay may have been my fault: I was semi-brain dead when I sent the package out and after mailing it, had a vague notion something was wrong with it. I'd done something very stupid with the SASE, which I won't detail here—too embarrassing. But the curt note scribbled on the back of the envelope indicates a certain irritation . . . How to win editors and influence associate editors. :-/

I had zero expectations that they'd accept that story, but that mutant seed hope just can't be crushed completely. SWAC will go back in the drawer until I'm ready to face it again. Increasingly, I'm convinced I'm a novelist and shouldn't waste my time with stories, but they do make a nice break from the long stuff, and there's a certain sense of liberation in finishing something short. So no rule which says I can't write them, but I may have to face the fact that I won't sell them.

I will push on with my literary demerited story today and see what happens.