March 2021

It's springtime, finally. I'm ready to see some green grass and feel the warmth of the sun for a couple of months. Then it will be summer and too hot. This image is the opposite of that—one last dark picture before I start sharing images of flowers and daylight.

    I finished a 10,000+ word story that I had mentioned last month in the February blog. I changed up the death penalty story that was too serious, and I'm pretty sure on edit I'm going to cut out the death penalty part of the story. I can do that because I wrote it. I can make it be whatever I want it to be. That's the cool part about writing a story. If part of it is weird and doesn't sit well, you can change it.

    I edited a couple of short stories I wrote years ago. Both were good but in serious need of an edit, which I am better equipped to handle now. It sucks that everything I edit now is likely going to be ready for a new edit in a year or two. It's a vicious cycle. 

One of the stories was a bedtime story I had made up for Honora when we were still reading and telling her stories before bed. I submitted it to the writer's group and received some solid feedback. I'll be jumping back on that story before the end of the month and making some adjustments. 

    The writer's group has been interesting. I have submitted and received solid feedback twice now. While that is valuable, what I am finding is that reading other writers' work with a critical eye is making me pay better attention to what I am writing. That may be why I'm writing a bit slower now. I need to make sure I don't let it stop me from writing.

    I have submitted nothing for publication, but I thought about it. 

    I read a great short story by Catherynne M. Valente in Uncanny Magazine and thought about submitting something there. I need to find the right one. If you want to read it, you can find it here https://uncannymagazine.com/article/the-sin-of-america/

    I was going to submit a query letter and the first ten pages to an agent that look great and upon checking my email realized I already had. 

Thank you, Gmail search options.

    That has been the month of March - a few weeks of writing, a few weeks of editing, absolutely no querying, and a fair amount of reading. 

    I am working on what could be a short story about robot process automation. If you think the robot dogs and dancing robots are scary, wait until you see what I can do with an automated follow-up letter or a direct send of a purchase order to a supplier's system.