On shorter matters

Along with the Finnegans cozy mystery novels I am writing, I also have about a half dozen short stories in the stable that I bring out periodically for a ride through the marketplace. I have one “literary” short story already published in a university journal, and a sort of fantasy story I wrote (and rewrote, and rewrote) will appear in the Beacons of Tomorrow speculative fiction anthology this year.

I currently have two short stories in submission with different magazines. One is a type of crime confessional that I submitted to a moderately well known print magazine. I had read some of the stories it has published in the past, and I thought mine was similar to a few of those (which all editors implore submitters to do), so in it went a couple of months ago. The stated response time has passed with no word reaching me. I don’t know if that means it’s still at the bottom of the slush pile or if it is under serious consideration or what. The best medication for this kind of submission anxiety, I have found, is simply to get other works in the submission pipeline to take my mind off the one. (Or to spread the anxiety across more than one?)

So to calm my worries I have another story out with an editor of an ezine. This is a serious story with a not-very-hopeful ending. I have called it “Night Train to Kisumu.” It is based on a trip I made to Kenya two years ago, and the current situation there exactly manifests what my story (and experience) had suggested. As horrible as the situation is there right now, I’m hoping that it will at least give some credibility to my story with the editor who is considering it.

There are a few “first-draft” short stories I have written that deserve a little more attention. I think I could pretty quickly polish them into submittable form. Then I could get them out there in the marketplace. I know that agents and editors say that a queried novel will stand or fall on its own merits, but I suspect that having proven fiction credentials by getting short stories published will make a difference.

I’ve mentioned here before that I am currently struggling with a story I’ve titled “The Sleep of Reason.” It’s not going to be a short story, but I don’t think it will be a novel either. It will probably fall into the novella category, which means that unless I can find some anthology somewhere that wants it, the piece probably won’t find a home in print.

If I am optimistic, I can say that the story is a third of the way completed (though I suspect it’s more like a fourth). What I’ve written so far comes to more than 7,000 words. Even I can do the math.

This story has been a real beast. I anguish over every word, trying to find exactly the right words to express the tone or the character’s insights (revulsion at this point in the story). I write a sentence. Then I turn it around. Then I chop it into pieces and slip the pieces in here and there to see if they fit. Then I decide it’s all wrong and shove it to the bottom of the page to use later if I find a place for it. I worked for more than four hours on one passage the other day, accumulating about 500 words, and most of those I’m not satisfied with.

I’m struggling with it not because I have a bad story to tell but because I have a good one, and it must be told right. Though this story probably has less likelihood of getting published than my short stories or even my novels, I feel a compulsion to write it to its very end.