Short Stories
Jan. 27th, 2006 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomikritzerI got the contract for the Dead Rivers trilogy right around the time I got pregnant with Kiera. So I scheduled my deadline for Freedom's Gate to be a month before the baby was due. I got the edits back the same day my water broke. So I had Kiera, came home, took two weeks off to do nothing but nurse Kiera and sit around, and then did the revisions. Then I wrote Freedom's Apprentice with a newborn and a preschooler. Turned it in, did the rewrites, then wrote Freedom's Sisters with a toddler and a preschooler.
Needless to say, all other writing projects got shelved. The one exception was "Honest Man," a short story I wrote in honor of my grandmother's 80th birthday. I love that story, though I haven't managed to sell it anywhere yet. I used my grandmother as the protagonist, and the real details of her life as the background and backstory. The main action of the story is made up. Part of the gift is that if I ever succeed in selling it, I'll donate the money to a free children's clinic that my grandmother volunteers at.
Having turned in Freedom's Sisters, I sat down to write a couple of short stories. First was "The Good Son," which I re-read and revised last week. And it kicks ass. It was one of those stories that I read it again and thought, "damn, I'm brilliant!" ...which doesn't happen very often (though I have the same reaction to "Honest Man.") Then I wrote "Ace of Spades." And I read it again and thought, "what a piece of crap."
I went ahead and handed "Ace of Spades" out to my critique group, to see if they had any ideas for ways I could salvage it. It's just....contrived, and less exciting than it needs to be, I think. (The Wyrdsmiths already got a look at "The Good Son," and loved it.)
I started but haven't finished a Christmas story. I have no idea yet whether I'm going to be happy with it, or if I will read it and cringe.
What's weird is that when I was thinking about "The Good Son," I was uncertain whether it would be good, bad, or indifferent once I was done writing it. I got all excited about "Ace of Spades." I thought it was going to be awesome. And then I read it back over, and......bleah.
Needless to say, all other writing projects got shelved. The one exception was "Honest Man," a short story I wrote in honor of my grandmother's 80th birthday. I love that story, though I haven't managed to sell it anywhere yet. I used my grandmother as the protagonist, and the real details of her life as the background and backstory. The main action of the story is made up. Part of the gift is that if I ever succeed in selling it, I'll donate the money to a free children's clinic that my grandmother volunteers at.
Having turned in Freedom's Sisters, I sat down to write a couple of short stories. First was "The Good Son," which I re-read and revised last week. And it kicks ass. It was one of those stories that I read it again and thought, "damn, I'm brilliant!" ...which doesn't happen very often (though I have the same reaction to "Honest Man.") Then I wrote "Ace of Spades." And I read it again and thought, "what a piece of crap."
I went ahead and handed "Ace of Spades" out to my critique group, to see if they had any ideas for ways I could salvage it. It's just....contrived, and less exciting than it needs to be, I think. (The Wyrdsmiths already got a look at "The Good Son," and loved it.)
I started but haven't finished a Christmas story. I have no idea yet whether I'm going to be happy with it, or if I will read it and cringe.
What's weird is that when I was thinking about "The Good Son," I was uncertain whether it would be good, bad, or indifferent once I was done writing it. I got all excited about "Ace of Spades." I thought it was going to be awesome. And then I read it back over, and......bleah.
