Sunday, January 04, 2009

Bad New/Not-So-Bad-News

Delirium dropped my collection Bone Songs, due to the economy and the downsizing of their output. And let’s face it: I’m not a big name.

The book is already under consideration with another publisher. This version is bigger. It contains several stories not in Bone Songs, including both stories that made up the sold-out Deadneck Hootenanny. I’m also shopping it around under the original title Looking at the World With Broken Glass in My Eye. That’ll choke a librarian, eh?

The same day I got the news from Delirium, I also got an invitation to an anthology that I’m very excited about. The editor is a well-known horror writer, and I have an idea that I think will work out well.

Speaking of writing, I was checking out my blog entries for the beginning of 2008. Ah, what a naive, wide-eyed romantic I was back then. I set lofty goals and met almost none of them. My biggest regret was missing a deadline given to me by another well-known writer who took an interest in my writing career.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to break down my problem in finishing a novel. Other than the things that are out of my control (a sometimes-crazy work schedule and a steady spate of health issues), I think I set an unrealistic daily goal. When I routinely failed to meet the goal, frustration would set in, and I would eventual flee from the keyboard.

So I’ve given myself a more realistic daily goal, one that I should be able to reach successfully. It’s worked well for the past few days and with a little luck and determination I should be able to finish this novel by early March.

The new schedule will also leave me a bit of free time to work on stories. I have several of those due, not including the anthology invitation mentioned above.

So here I am in 2009: refocused, re-energized and relentless.

Let’s see if I can keep it up.

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