Keeping everyone up to date

This is just a - this is what I am doing - post. In case anyone is wondering.

Right now I am sitting with a cup of coffee, pot on a warmer behind me, and preparing to edit a manuscript. I am considering getting another one published. Not self-published, not done through a POD, but actually published. Time to up my prestige a notch.

I have two manuscripts that I believe can accomplish this task for me. The first is titled, "Lessons Never Taught." It is about an assassin and a hero that rides a pegasus. They become both involved in a rescue operation that does not gain them praise even though they succeed. The story is about their attempts to 'lie low' and allow time to pass, even as they try to figure out what the real problem is. I like the story and characters, but do not feel that it really broadens my writing ability. The story however is short, barely breaking 70,000 words, so actually has a chance to be accepted.

The other manuscript is "The Ocean Queen." This is the one I would prefer to get published. It is a 'coming of age' story of Vorfor who is the oldest son of the oldest son. The father of four children committed a serious crime that condemned him and separated the children. It is now years later, the children have found each other and settled into good lives, but the father has returned to again work his mischief. This is an epic tale of family and fantasy that I really like, but it shoots past 100,000 words so might be rejected simply on length.

I have edited the first manuscript, and gave a printout to a student at school. I expect it to run around the campus and generate some responses for me. The second one is now being edited. By the time this one is edited, I should be able to catch my first manuscript at school, make a switch in printouts, then encourage some students to do some more reading.

I will update when there is something to update. Should anyone else have projects keeping them busy, they can add them.

Length should not be a diving issue. Don't let that stop you from submitting.

I think you should go with the one you feel the most confident about, don't let word count count against you!

Good Luck with this!

Best of luck to you.

My short novel has received some good reviews from my students. I thus will probably run it through another edit, then send it somewhere.

My long novel has just been nixed by me. I came upon the chapter that introduced my bad guy, and realized just how graphic I was. The guy is so bad that pirates do not challenge him. He then comes ashore and kills a soldier. While attempting to flee while others are looking for who murdered the soldier, he meets a young couple -- murders the guy then rapes the lady. None of it is as simple as I have sound. I have to give myself credit for description, but I also nixed it.

I have instead turned to "Life is Its Own Complication." This is another bad-guy novel, but the evil of this bad-guy is more tolerable. The guy works with dead things, and zombie-making does not have the disgusting rating of sex (especially forced sex - yeah, you can have blood-soaked scenes in movies, but not any hanky-panky). My only problem with "Life is Its Own Complication" is that the main characters are not human, so it is slightly short on reader identification.

Anyway, moving forward.

The one you nixed sounds better.

HYdraMStar wrote:

The one you nixed sounds better.

Hah! I do like that story, but I don't want offend at this point in my career. By the way, I have another that I really want to work on one day. It is the only tale that I ever had banned. "The Strange Fate of Fairplay" is a story of slavery using a magical situation to pull the topic of slavery away from our historic perspective, but I then allowed the story to sink into some pretty cruel situations. I pulled the story out, but no one ever got to see the 'better' chapters. I liked the story and wrote most of it (even though I knew they would never get posted), but in looking over the text I gained the impression that I never should have lightened up on the story. I have it as one of my challenges one day to re-engage the story and see just how low I can keep it.

Thanks for the comment, Hydra.