Browsing all articles from July, 2011

Finished a New Project

Posted by Merry in Merry's Blog Comments

Jul
28

I feel somewhat accomplished today because I submitted a new short story to BSB for their upcoming lesbian paranormal anthology. It’s a ghost story, which was not at all what I was planning on writing for this project, but it’s somehow the thing that decided to write itself when I sat down at the computer…

I haven’t decided yet whether I’m in love with the story or not, but that’s because I always want to make short stories into something bigger than they’re supposed to be. I want to add too much detail, too much back story, and when I’m limited to a few thousand words I start feeling like the plot is rushing itself a little. In this particular case, one of the characters is insisting that she would be great in a novel. A lesbian Peruvian mummy ghost novel, my friends – and what’s more, based on a real archeological discovery. Yeah. So as I was trying to write this little non-mummy short story for her, she was all the time trying to get me to agree that her Peruvian tale would be far more exciting.

Anyway, after a good amount of wrestling with the challenges of fitting her into a much smaller tale for the time being, I finally got the short story done only to realize that the deadline for submitting said stories was the 21st of this month, not the 31st. Luckily Rad is the nicest person on the planet, and so very graciously agreed to let me send my story over late. *hangs head in shame* I am just hoping that she likes it, that it fits in all right with the other submissions for the anthology, and that it’s hopefully not too similar to any of the other submissions, but I guess we’ll see. Funny how I always, always feel more nervous about my short story submissions than I do about my full length novels. :P

If BSB does approve my story for inclusion in the anthology, the book will be out sometime in Spring of 2012, so that’s pretty exciting.

In the meantime, I’m thinking about reposting on the site an older short story that I wrote when I was in college. It’s long been one of my favorite little pieces, and since it’s already out there on the internet on a couple of other sites it’s not eligible for publication with BSB, so I figure I should probably make it available for free here too in case anybody wants a snippet of very very very early Merry Shannon stuff. *grins*

First, though, I think I should probably dust off the old version and brighten it up a bit in edits… ^~

The Summer’s Flying

Posted by Merry in Merry's Blog Comments

Leave a Comment

Jul
20

As always it feels like the summer is just flying by. I don’t know what it is about this season — maybe it’s because I love it so much, but every year it feels like summer gets shorter and shorter. :P

We’ve had a lot of projects going on lately that have been pulling my attention away from writing, but I have finally managed to finish off Chapter Thirteen. I’d gotten stuck for a little while in between scenes — I knew exactly what needed to happen but oddly I think a part of me was hesitant to write it because I wasn’t fully confident I could pull it off with the same energy that the rest of the story has. The scene felt like it was dragging its way out of me in a sort of lackluster fashion, but taking a break and coming back to it has been a huge help. I think maybe it was my own feelings that were somewhat lackluster, not the story itself, and I needed to come at it from a fresh perspective in order to get it where I needed it to be.

As usual I read a bunch of books in between and drew inspiration from them. Went back through what I have written so far and did a bunch of editing. By the time I arrived at the spot where I was stuck, the story started to flow for me again, yay!

Anyway, we’ve hit 75,000 words now. About 70% through the manuscript at this point. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to set the book aside again for the next few days, because there’s a paranormal anthology I’ve been invited to write for and therefore, a short story that I need to get done. I think I’ve mentioned before that I really, really struggle to write short stories. I inevitably hate them when I’m finished, and it takes multiple readings much, much later to convince myself that they really are all right.

But, short stories are important and valuable media for a writer. They get your work into the hands of those who might not otherwise pick up your books just off the bat, and hopefully they intrigue those readers enough to go out and give your full-length stuff a try. Not to mention that, since they’re particularly challenging for me, I really *ought* to be making myself write them more often, just for the “workout.” So, short story it is. I have the first couple of pages of a ghost story written, and ten days before the submission deadline, so I have to get crackin’!

Also wanted to mention again that I will be leading a round table discussion of Queer Monsters at this year’s upcoming Sirens Conference. The conference is being held in Vail, Colorado in early October, with such distinguished featured guests as Laini Taylor, Nnedi Okorafor, and Justine Larbalestier. I’m really looking forward to it and I hope to see some of you there as well! Just take a look at some of their accepted programing so far… I’m going to have a really hard time deciding which sessions to attend!!