Despite what I said the other day, no I have not started a new short story yet.  I can say with 98% certainty, though, that "The Fish in the Fields" will be my next story.  I just haven't figured it all out yet and, with REVELATIONS edits still bouncing around in my head, I'm not ready to devote that kind of subconscious thinking to a separate story.  So I'm going to make another pass at REVELATIONS, then let some people read it.  I can't commit to a new story while I'm so close to being at the true end of the novel and start submitting it.  I know that's still quite a ways away, but at the very least I can get it ready for the readers, and then, while they're reading, work on the new story.

It's just so hard to decide when, really, none of my options are lighting that spark in me right now.  I have 3 unfinished short stories on my computer that I started, got a good length into, and never went back to.  There's "The Fish in the Fields" which I wrote 366 words on, "Satanic Mechanic", which is currently 1002 words long and is the one I've been stalled on the longest, or "The Garden", which is 1008 words.  Or I could just do something new.  So I guess I have 4 options.

I hate leaving these stories unfinished, though.  And it's very unlike me to not be able to finish a story, especially when I know where they're going.  I know I could finish any one of those three in no time, but there's something in the back of my mind saying it's just not the right time for them yet.  But if not now, when?  I know the problem with any of them is that, at this moment, there's no heart.  I could finish them, but they'd be soulless creations, just a bunch of words.  I have to find the heart of each story, that thing that's gonna make it stand out.  I know, especially on the two longer ones, that it's just not there yet.  And the first one, "The Fish in the Fields," is no more than an interesting title I'm trying to force a story onto without first weighing my options to see if I can come up with something better.

I'd like to say I'll further ponder this today at work, but I know it's gonna be way too busy all day for any kind of pondering.  But it'll come to me sooner or later.

This has been a very busy, but very productive weekend.  Every short story I have available is out somewhere.  I have submissions and queries galore, including my novel THE THIRD FLOOR.  I wrote the query letter and synopsis this morning.  The only two things I have ready, but not sent yet, are "Damned and Disgruntled" and ICONS TO ASHES, but I do have them printed, it's just a matter of mailing them.  But since I know where they're going and have the copies at hand, I consider them submitted already as well.

This is the first time since I started writing in 1992 that I have nothing waiting to go out, and it feels prety strange.  Because REVELATIONS is cooling, subs are made . . . now what do I do?  I'm thinking I'd really like to write a new story, but a short one, a quick, easy story to get my brain working again before I go back for that next set of edits for the novel.  I may think on that today and possibly get started tomorrow, we'll see.  I do have three story openings here that I never finished.  I maybe oughta do one of those.

Submissions:

16 short stories

1 novella

1 graphic novel

1 novel

In addition to all the submissions, I wrote three new reviews, and, in doing so, finished off my 50 HORROR CLASSICS dvd set.  I have 50 SCIFI CLASSICS here, as well, but I'm not sure I want to get started on that one just yet.  Soon, though.

Submissions are coming along nicely.  I made 3 last night after work, and queried for another this morning.  Right now I only have 3 short stories, 1 collection, and 1 novel waiting to be submitted.  I don't think there's ever been a time when everything I had was out somewhere, but I think--I hope--that I'll see that day very soon.  And if some of those stories would like to come back with acceptances, that would be nice, too.  I'm just saying.

Thank God the market I'm looking at for "Damned and Disgruntled" doesn't take email submissions, otherwise I'd have probably jumped the gun and submitted it already after re-typing it day before yesterday.  Luckily I had to print a copy to submit, and then last night decided to read it again and found a slew of typos.  I've fixed them, though, and will be printing a new copy.

I submitted "The Insanity Dance" this morning and spent the rest of my time looking for markets for ICONS TO ASHES.  My God there are so few markets open to short collections (I2A is about 24,000 words) that not only publish in print but also pay anything.  I could find an e-publisher in seconds, but that's not what I want.

I need to write a query letter for THE THIRD FLOOR--that book has been done and gathering dust for at least 2 years now and I need to submit it.  God, I hate writing query letters.

I finished re-typing "Damned and Disgruntled" last night.  I wouldn't have guessed typing in some poems would take almost 2 hours, but it did.  The market I'm looking at submitting it to only takes paper submissions, so I'll have to print a new copy and send it in.

This morning I looked at some more markets and found one I think--hope--"The Room" may be a good match for.  We'll see; I submitted it just a minute ago.

I think that's it for now.

This morning was dedicated to working on my long poem "Damned and Disgruntled" which I had tried a few years ago to have published as a single chapbook, but the publisher I had been in contact with turned out to be a flake and they just kind of never got back to me and eventually vanished altogether.  So between rounds of editing, I'd like to try to find a real publisher, because I really like this piece.

Today I researched markets and found a couple viable ones, but then realized I don't have a copy of this poem on disk anymore.  So I had to dig out my hard copy and start re-typing.  Thank God it's only a poem.  I'm gonna try to finish that tonight after work.

On Saturday I read and edited the last 70 pages of REVELATIONS IN THE SEASON OF THE BITCH.  I'm still pretty shy of my 10% revision goal, having only deleted 5160 words.  That leaves 10,000 still to go.  I'm going to let it rest for a week or so while I catch up on some submissions and possibly try to write a new story, then when I come back to it, I think I'll have a pretty decent idea of where to get those extra 10,000 words I need to cut.  Actually, I already know where they are, it's just a matter of figuring out how to include that information in the story in a different way.  I can do it.

I'm only one movie away from finishing my HORROR CLASSICS series.  "Phantom from 10,000 Leagues" will round out the box set, then I can think about moving on to my SciFi Classics dvds.  Over the weekend I reviewed "Dementa 13" and Prince's "3121", both of which you can find here.

Today I'll be starting a new book:

"One evening, a man suddenly saunters out after watching television and fails to come home.  He calls his wife to tell her that he just can't live with her anymore.  Left with a baby daughter and at a loss, Miyuki contacts her husband's childhood friend Shirow for help.  As the two investigate the missing man's whereabouts, they come to fear that the disappearance involves more than mere caprice.

"Published a dozen years after RING, the contemporary horror classic that won Koji Suzuki worldwide acclaim, PROMENADE OF THE GODS is a mystery in which the author's signature use of amateur sleuths comes to the fore and spellbinds anew.  Considered his most important novel since the fame RING trilgy, PROMENADE shares with it many themes and a character, a guru called Kageyama, mentioned only in passing in RING.  When the occult and the media cross ways, a new light begins to shimmer on the horizon.

"While an essential companion piece for connoisseurs of the RING trilogy and the themes  explored therein, PROMENADE requires and expects no familiarity with the earlier series.  It is an excellent introduction to the world of Koji Suzuki and the unique delights of his storytelling style, which pulls readers along whether they like it or not."

I'm pretty excited to get started on it.  But first . . . work.

There's little point in making these posts about what chapter I've last edited because, really, even when I'm done, the thing still needs a few tweaks before it's going to be ready to be seen, and even THEN it's only going to be by a select few.  The majority of the people who I like to tell myself might be reading this will only get to see the novel once it's published.  Still, I have the blog and it's not like it costs me anything extra to mention I'm really happy, still, with how the edits are coming along and how I still find myself anxious to read the next chapter and see what happens.  I knew, before and during the writing, that this book would be, for me, something special.  I just don't think I knew HOW much I would like it.  It might even be the coolest thing I've ever written.

As of chapter 34 I've got it down to 151,700-some words.  Still a far cry from the 140,000 I was hoping for with the first pass, and I've only got 72 single-spaced pages left.  We'll see what happens.  Time for work now.

A few things of note:

1) REVELATIONS is coming along NICELY.  I'm about halfway into editing Chapter 28 with 115 single-spaced manuscript pages to go.  As I thought, most of the editing for the latter half of the book is cleanup and rewording as by this point in the writing I knew everything else, so I'm not changing details or locations or directions anymore.  It's not often I can go back to something I wrote and, while editing it, find myself feeling like I'm reading someone else's work, but that's the case with this.  I'm  always eager to get back to it so I can see what happens next.  I think that's a good sign.

2) I finished PET SEMATARY (and will not be reading anything new until I have this first run-through on REVELATIONS completed).

3) Speaking of Stephen King, I've been trying to keep up-to-date on N.  For more go here:  It's good stuff.

I think that might be it for now.

I made huge leaps in the editing over the past few days, knocking out 10 more chapters and now I'm up to 20.  Another 2 chapters and I'll be halfway through.  There was a detail about the timeline that was bugging me, trying to figure out when things were taking place and more importantly when the "event" that led to our story happened, and I figured that part out last night.  Thank you, Mayans.

I'm looking forward to finishing because I'm eager to write something new.  I don't necessarily have any ideas that are eating away at me, but still.

I was editing Chapter 12 last night when I came across a passage I don't remember writing.  That happens sometimes, although not very often.  But this particular instance was so unexpected . . . I still don't remember writing it and can't believe I thought of it.  I like it, I think it's very funny and I laughed out loud when I read it, but even now, a day later, I still can't remember it coming from me.  I worked out a few kinks, took out some sections that don't do anything but take up space, and now I think I have a pretty solid Chapter 12.  Word count now is 153,086.

Some of the submissions I've made the last few months are starting to trickle back in.  None with good news.  That's the worst part of writing.  But we buck up and move forward.

I feel like there was something else I wanted to mention, but it escapes me now.

Between last night and this morning, I worked through chapters 10 and 11 of REVELATIONS IN THE SEASON OF THE BITCH.  They took a little more work than the previous couple, since I changed the location the characters are traveling to and, with that set in my mind, I was able to add more details of their drive.  I also didn't cut as much as I have been.  But the chapters were only about 7 pages combined anyway, so there wasn't much to cut without losing the entire scene.

All told I've only taken out a little over 2500 words.  I need about 15,000 to get the manuscript down by that 10% from first draft to second.  But there's still much more to come and I'm just now, with chapter 12, about to start the all-new material, the part of the book where I started adding to the story when I picked it up again after over a year of not writing a single word.  I'm quite sure this is where the prose will start to get messier and need more attention and, in turn, hopefully, I'll be able to shorten it a lot from here on out.

Do I really need to go into what it's about? 

I finally finished reading TOUCHES.  Reviewed here:

I went through Chapter 8 twice this morning--it's a very short chapter, just slightly over 3 pages.  I cut about 100 words from it.  The next part is the one I've been dreading the most.  It's a big part of the reason this edit is taking me so long to dig into.  See, I have 3 short stories that relate to this novel, "The Strange Thing that Happened at the SpinCycle Laundry", "The Salvation of Victor", and "The Flesh-Method & Myriad."  So I have inserted these stories into the narrative as interludes, just a break from main story to give a little background on what comes next.  The problem is, they're not quite as spread out as I'd intended, all three taking place within the first half of the novel, leaving the second half devoid of interludes.  And, to me, it all makes the whole thing seem kind of trite.  I could take them out, but the characters they introduce are pretty important to the plot.  I could remove the stories and include the background information some other way, but as outlandish as the characters are, I don't think this method would do them justice nor set the proper tone for their arrival on the scene.  Basically, I don't think there's any other way to properly convey this information other than including the original short stories as quick asides to the main narrative.  But, cramming them all into the first half of the book just makes everything really unbalanced, for me anyway.

So I can't decide if I leave the interludes, take them out, or alter them somehow to make them more a part of the big picture in general.  It's all very upsetting and I've spent many sleepless nights going over and over it in my head.  But the time has finally come to make a decision because I just finished chapter 8 and before I reach chapter 9, there's interlude 1 to deal with.