Short Stories
Since I decided I couldn't deal with finishing NaNoWriMo this month (yeah, yeah, yeah, dismal failure, I know), I am in the middle of two short stories. I'm writing them both at the same time, which is actually convenient in this instance because they feature the same characters. It's a world I've been writing in, if you can believe it, since the fifth grade. Of course, there have been plenty of developments, changes, new names, longer outline, etc. But I figure I've been writing stories all my life about a witch named Emma, and I find she's still got a lot to say. The one is from the point of view of another character in her life, and I am close to 2,900 words and trying to pare back. I think a large problem with the stories I've sent out is length. For example, I've gotten several (albeit nice) rejections on Dangerous City, Dark Skyway, which runs about 8,500 words. A lot of magazines won't go over the 4,000-6,000 range, so basically the shorter the story, the more options you leave open for yourself. In case you could not have predicted this about me from my blog, I have this problem with wordiness.
Yeah.
But I am REALLY AIMING for 5,000 words on this story. Seriously. And the second one, geez, I would like to go for 2,500-3,000 and keep it very, very short. A snippet of life, if you will. I can't believe all the sites out there dedicated to those itty bitty 100-word drabble things. It is impossible for me to tell a story in that amount of words. Impossible. And yet people do it! Amazing.
4 comments:
Yeah...but so much depends on a red wheelbarrow grazed with rain water besides the white chickens. And all of the sudden it's a famous poem. The whir of my hard drive forebodes transient lingering afore the trumpeting of my mp3...am I famous now?
Good for you, I gave up a while ago on it all.
Hello!
I thought of you the other day as I was talking to my advisor. He passed these websites along to me and I thought, as a fellow author in search of publication, these might be helpful to you. Granted, haven't had a chance to look at them myself yet (so I could be blowing smoke out my you-know-what) but what the heck...
www.wordswithoutborders.org (its like Doctors With Out Borders)
www.webdelsol.com (website that keeps up to date on all the happenings in the literary world. I believe it also has links to possible publication)
www.newpages.com (same as above, only magazines).
Good luck friend, and let me know how it goes!
Don't feel too bad! NaNoWriMo is just an excuse to get people to write.
And that's what you're doing!:-) Working on two different projects to boot!
The only important thing is to keep writing!
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