Not really happy with the story I wrote today. It needs more time to cook.
Any time I do the last scene in Tell mode, I know there’s a problem. (I rewrote one of those this morning, and it’s much improved.)
Part of the problem with today’s one is that it’s about an issue I’m genuinely conflicted about. I don’t see a single right answer – which is good for writing a story with some depth, but also makes it harder. I think that’s why I did the final scene as an excerpt from a catalog of a retrospective exhibition, summarizing the artist character’s life; because that gave a degree of distance from the stuff I didn’t want to write. Tomorrow, or later in the week, I’ll probably go in and bring it into focus.
Anyway, I’m continuing to turn ideas into stories. And after due processing, those stories go out on submission. I’m 60% of the way through my goal of writing 15 stories this year (not counting today’s one, because I don’t feel it’s finished), and 53% of the way through my goal of 60 submissions. I’ve written as many stories in the first five months of this year as in the whole of last year (more, in fact, because there are a couple I’m not counting as complete.)
What has been conspicuously absent lately is sales. I think I may be shooting too high, because I’m submitting to the established pro markets, the ones where I’m competing with experienced, established writers. Time, perhaps, to lower my sights to the newer pro markets that publish the newer pro writers, where I’m on more of a level playing field.