It's very tempting sometimes to try to rush a story for one reason or another. Case in point: I'm currently working on a story that I think would probably fit the guidelines for the Chizine short story contest, but with two days left, I just don't think it's going to happen. It would be far too easy to try to force the story or manipulate it into something that it's not, just for the sake of entering the contest. I think this story has the potential to be pretty good, but there's still a lot to be worked out and it needs to be more organic. I feel like I'm forcing, so that's probably an indication that it won't turn out as well as I'd like. Besides, it's just a contest. There's one on just about every corner. Or maybe that's a Starbucks I'm thinking of...
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Today's top book find: a signed first edition hardcover copy of Bernard Cornwell's Enemy of God. Not bad at all.
2 comments:
Second year in a row you've mentioned this contest -- and once again it looks like I've got something in Invenstory to send and you don't. So, uh, thanks I guess.
Just sent them a story, which was recently rejected by Stanley at Analog because while it "is well written, but it’s mostly a problem-solving story (and our readers usually expect more, these days) and the problem doesn’t get solved (which leaves for an unsatisfying aftertaste; sometimes such a situation works well, but in the case, at least for me, it didn’t)."
So I'm going to consider that it qualifies as "dark" because of the unsatisfying bummer ending. (grin) At any rate, it's a MUCH stronger entry than last years.
We'll see in a month.
Dr. Phil
*GASPS* Signed Cornwell 1st edition! Sweet find.
Sometimes the story just twists in your grasp. I was more than halfway through the detective's secretary story at the end of April, and I wanted desperately to finish and send it out. But it wasn't working, so I went back to the drawing board and wrote it into one of my strongest pieces--over the course of the following six weeks. To everything a season, or something like that, I guess.
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