Nothin' much

I'm not really working on much just lately. Planning for my workshop. Planning for submission. Waiting to hear back from my readers (though at least one person gave me quite helpful comments on my query letter).

I have any number of unfinished short stories sitting on my hard drive. "Unfinished" ranges from "has characters and something of an arc" to "has a titled file with a sentence or more in it", which can be a daunting proposition to, say, make the decision to finish each story scrap that you've started. Or finish five.

I haven't made any such decision, but I've thought about it. Those Chuck Wendig prompts I didn't finish before the deadline, if I started them at all beyond the basest selection of random criteria. Those stores my interest wandered from when they were only a page in, halfway done, almost to the climax. I can't explain why I didn't finish the ice cream man story when I started it, or the girl with horns. I can't explain where I was going with the pickpocket story, or the file titled "never McDonalds." I had the ideas, sure, but didn't follow through and they slipped away. Use it or lose it, kids.

This isn't the first time I've talked about this, nor will it be the last I'm sure. I'm certain many, if not all, writers have these dog-ends of stories, these remnants to be finished, or discarded, or crazy quilted in with another idea entirely.

It would make sense to pick one of these files, read what I have. Outline what I have, and what could logically follow. Write. Will I do this? I dunno. It could be fun. It would add to my portfolio. Need to plan for future submissions, of course. So far as October Submissions go, by the way, I've only got 5 left I haven't heard back on. On one, I'll be nudging them soon, as we've passed the ninety day mark they recommend on the website. The others, there's lots of time before I'm supposed to worry. I also have 5 post-October submissions, because I figured once in the saddle, I might as well keep riding.