Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Finishing buzz

There's nothing quite like feeling done with a project. It's finally come together and done what you want it to do. I think I've been on a finishing buzz high these last two weeks as I turned in the edits on a novel and now finished the major edits on my Chinese themed short story. Extra thanks to Trevor, Char, and Samantha Ling for their crits (and Ling's story is wonderful, I hafta say.)

I guess short story writing is the key to feeling that finishing buzz more often. If only I were any good at it... As S.M. Stirling puts it, writing a short story is like trying to stuff a cat into a Coke bottle without breaking bones. Some people excel at this (and by that I mean short story writing - if I know anyone good at cat stuffing, I'd prefer not to know who they are). I do not, but short stories are great exercise, I think. They take as much work as novels and pay a lot less, but you really have to know how to build a scene and structure a plot to make them work.

So, I've started another novel, and in a break from the norm, it's starting as a freewrite project. I feel my YA science fiction needs some fresh ideas and a new direction. Freewriting will either give it that, or it'll at least pass some time until a more intelligent idea comes along.

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