Writing Wednesday – Edits!

 

Editing! (Also, you can preorder!)

I got my edits back for Triad Soul, and I’ve been plugging away at them this week. I have more items for my “personal foible” list now (who knew it was possible to be addicted to em-dashes?), but as always, the editing process is my favourite bit: it’s where I get to see where I need to work on my craft, and where I get to see my awesome editor (Jerry L. Wheeler, by the way) take the rough thing I made and polished it and made it shiny.

Also, it’s the point at which things start to feel “real” to me. The Triad boys are fun to write, and it can be easy to overindulge their characters. Jerry keeps me in line, and he’s fun to work with. I love reading his comments, even when they’re snarky.

Scratch that. Especially when they’re snarky.

It’s nice to have that kind of relationship with your editor, and it’s certainly an asset to my writing.

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Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks

I’ve been working on Triad Soul, of course, so I willingly put EPfTF aside for the last few days to get the edits done. I should be done today, and then I’ll catch up the word-count, nasal/jaw surgery notwithstanding.

The cast of characters for EPfTF are really starting to come to life for me. Cole’s father, who runs an online ASL interpretation service; Cole’s best friend, who is ace; and the rest of the Rainbow Club, who are a lot of fun to write as well.

They say YA is the genre of “Firsts” and I’m keeping that lens in mind as I go through the book. For Cole, this is the first time he’s bumping into things completely outside of his control and outside of his careful plans. And although he’s snogged it out with another guy in the Rainbow Club, there’s potential for a first serious boyfriend in the form of Malik. If, y’know, Malik might be at the Rainbow Club to do more than ask why Cole didn’t report being shoved into a locker…

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Of Echoes Born / Short Pieces

I finished my story for the 11th Annual NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge, and sent it in. My assignment was “Ghost story, with an admission of guilt, and a stalker character.” The story I came up with was called “Filling Silences” and involved a cop with a suspect confessing to the stalking/murder of a young gay man. It’s the last case the cop worked on with his partner, who was killed in a drunk driving accident, and closing it means a lot to him. So a confession is great. Except why would a guy not even on their suspect list confess? Is it too easy? He seems afraid of someone, but it’s not the cop. And the longer they talk, the more the cop is convinced it’s not someone he’s afraid of, it’s something.

Today, while I might not get a lot done on Of Echoes Born (see above, re: edits), it did occur to me that if “Filling Silences” doesn’t make it to the next round of the contest, it’ll be well suited to Of Echoes Born with some tweaking and flushing out.

So, in a way, I did work on  the collection, too.

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Open Calls for Submission

Lastly, Writing Wednesday updates include my list off all the various open calls for submission I’ve found and/or am trying to write for. If you know of any others, by all means do drop them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list. If this is helpful for people other than myself, it’s even better.

Also, January totals were solid: 6 submissions (4 of which were reprints, 2 were new pieces), 1 acceptance.

Onward to February (thus far, unsurprisingly, zero).

• Chicken Soup for the Soul – Various titles, various themes, various deadlines, 1,200 word count limit.
• Clarkesworld – Currently open for art, non-fiction, and short story submissions.
• Cast of Wonders – Young adult short fiction market, open to story submissions up to 6,000 words.
• 49th Parallels – Alternative Canadian Histories and Futures, Bundoran Press, deadline February 14th, 2017; 1,500-7k word count limit.
• MM Superpowers anthology – This isn’t the only thing open at Totally Bound (you can click through for the full list), but this is the one I’m eyeing; deadline February 28th, 2017; 10k-15k word count limit, with erotic content.
• Wet Summer Nights – White collar/blue collar, cross-town, wrong side of the tracks lovers theme; Mischief Corner Books; 10k-18k word count; deadline March 31st, 2017.
• Alice Unbound – Think Alice in Wonderland, only speculative and may embrace fabulist, weird, myth, SF, fantasy, steampunk, horror, etc. Exile Editions; Submission window: February 1st – May 31st, 2017; 2k – 5k word count limit; Canadians and ex-pat Canadians only.