Wait... Okay, I'm Ready... Wait...

I finally got an answer on my short story "Shell,"which has been languishing in the slush at Intergalactic Medicine Show since February. It has gone into the editor's "Read Again" pile, so there's hope that this could be that elusive second sale. This also means at least another couple of months of waiting. Aaargh, the pace of this business kills me.

Which is not a criticism of the editor at IGMS, any more than it is of the editor at Baen's Universe, who has a story I submitted in December of last year and won't be giving me a definitive thumbs up or down until after my 44th birthday, probably. I mean, it's basically a result of too many people chasing too few dollars.

Also, I'm approaching the halfway point of the novel rewrite and hitting one of those "this book totally sucks and I should quit and do something else" doldrums with it. One of the problems is that I've planted so many clues to the villains' plot that the heroes need to twig to it a little earlier, which means revising their actions for the remainder of the second act.

Problem is, what I really need is for them to do something in reaction to the perceived danger that actually puts them in a worse position when the real danger is revealed. So I know what I want the effect of their actions to be, but as far as their substance, I'm clueless. Need to think...

Of course, once I finish it (which if I work really, really hard will maybe be within a year of the time I started), then it goes into a slush pile somewhere, where it will wait for two years, if I'm lucky and they like it, before being accepted for publication in another two or so years. So start the chant now: "Digger in 2010."