Getting stuck in

The writing of my anthology is almost complete. The covers are done, the stories are being finished and polished, and I'm starting to get excited again. I'm 25,000 words into the book, and the target is 30-32,000, so I'm nearly there. I have been asked, quite innocently, why I am publishing it through lulu.com and not sending stories to publishers and contests and the like. This is a very good question, which I'd like to answer here if I may.

I am working on material for submission to magazines and publishers as well as my ongoing fiction projects, but I wanted to put out a short book via a Print On Demand source for the simple fact that I wanted to train myself a little in getting something completed and out. The stories that are contained in Across the Seas of Mind are primarily written for my own satisfaction. I know that it won;t sell many copies and won't catapult me to superstardom, but it is helping me gather the stamina and discipline to complete a work that I am proud of.

Writing at least 1000 words of new material a day, be it fiction or non-fiction is helping me hone what skills I have. Writing for the pages I do for my dayjob is great fun; I get to spread the word about the cool stuff coming out, which is always a good thing. Writing reviews for Powerplay and Subba Cultcha is a bit more of a challenge as there are rules and each one is a challenge. It isn't as easy as you might think to review an album in a fair manner. Sure it'd be easy to say 'this is crap', but that's an album someone has worked hard to create. The least people like myself can do is give it a fair hearing and an honest opinion, which is what I try to do.

The new draft of my novel is just under 9,000 words long so far. There are many projects I have written chunks of, but this is the one I keep coming back to (two screenplays and various earlier drafts have been created around it), and it will find its way into the hands of a publisher as soon as there is enough of it written to form a submission pack. It ois proving to be a wonderful experience writing it. The characters are taking on definite personalities, which is something I've fretted about in the past. Things are coming together nicely.

This is where it begins for real. It has been a long time coming, and I'm thrilled to be making the effort. It is effort that makes all the difference in this game.

I think...

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