I love it when I get a first draft of anything done! Seriously, it’s like a big weight gets lifted from my chest. The fear of non-completion is still big with me. Probably because I’m still fairly new at this whole writing thing. It seems a terrible waste to abandon anything I’ve worked on.
Then again, it happens all the time. Writers get an idea but have no way to know how it will work until they begin the process of writing. Not all of them will work.
I think of it like the stock market. You can’t pick a winner every time.
But, here I am to tell you that I’ve finished the first draft of a new story called Life/Time in the New World. It’s sitting pretty at just shy of 14,000 words. So, that makes it another novella vice a short story. That’s okay, though. If you want to see the initial chapter (which has since been edited and added to) you can here.
What am I doing with this one? Well, Yankari–as much as I love that novella–isn’t doing so well in the sales department, so I doubt I’ll publish this one in the same way. Instead, I’ll collect it with a few others (published and unpublished) and put them in a volume. I was thinking, ‘Hey…people don’t want to pay for a story they read in another book, so I’ll publish them on their own so people can pick and choose. That’s cheaper!’
As a total newbie, I still don’t understand all the ins and outs of this publishing thing, but it made sense. It didn’t work. So, into a book they go! Not Yankari, though. It’s already out there on its own so it will stay there with that gorgeous cover. So far, almost everyone wants the Yankari world (Talking Earth) to become a new series…maybe it will! Best to leave it out there in case that happens.
A few people saw my post last night and already raised their hands to be beta readers…got to see if the story sucks! I should be ready to send it out for betas in a couple of weeks. The James River Writer’s Conference is next week so I’ll be out of pocket and not doing any writing for four days.
And yes, I’m still working on Silo 49: Roughneck. ::big smile::