short story collection

The short story collection September 2013 update, Part 2

Having looked over more of the stories that I plan to gather together into a collection I’ve concluded that meeting my self-imposed deadline of year’s end will require winning the lottery so I can devote all my time to writing, a miracle on the level of something that would make for a snazzy short story or some combination thereof.

The main problem is that although I have a lot of completed stories, they are not finished. Most are first drafts and a number of them are rough first drafts or simply reflect a level of writing quality that I feel falls short of what I am capable of now. Why toss a bunch of mediocre stories into a collection? That’s not going to make for good dust jacket quotes. “From the author that brought you the so-so collection 10 Pairs of Shorts comes his latest average novel!”

Instead of mildly freaking out about this as I once might have, I’ve adopted a more sanguine attitude. The collection will continue to be worked on regularly but I’m no longer going to pressure myself with the arbitrary deadline of December 31, 2013. Besides, everyone will be drunk that night and won’t want to read, anyway.

Going forward I’m going to work on the collection at a more relaxed pace, dive back into the next draft of The Ferry and start doing the prep work for my NaNoWriMo 2013 novel, which will, I promise*, be a spectacle to behold.

 

* promise subject to change without notice

The short story collection September 2013 update

It’s time to update the progress on putting together my short story collection–which I still plan on self-publishing before year’s end, less than four months from now. Ho ho.

Although I haven’t winnowed down the final group of stories I expect to have at least twenty ready to go. As of today I have five in a state I consider complete so I’m about 25% there. The remaining stories require everything from light edits to Maybe In the Next Collection.

The five completed are:

The trio of Chicago 8 superhero stories. The tone in all of these is very silly:

  • The Cobalt Sensation
  • The Chicago 8 vs. Armageddon
  • The Chicago 8 vs. Time

Plus:

  • Cervidae (Lovecraft homage)
  • Slice of Life (light modern day SF fare)

I’m now mulling over the next two or three to edit and then I’ll dive back into one of the unfinished stories to really get the ol’ creative juices flowing in the lead-up to National Novel Writing Month in November (also I’ve always found the idea of ‘creative juices’ kind of gross. What are they even meant to represent? It sounds like something you’d buy in a can).

I’m still thinking about a good title for the collection. I remain partial to 10 Pairs of Shorts or something similar. When I look over my body of work there is not a lot of Grimdark material so the light tone of the title shouldn’t be in conflict with the tone of the majority of stories. Even the horror stories are often more whimsical than not, even when people are getting killed. Especially when people are getting killed.

I will post another update soon™.