Unexpected Productivity Continues

[davidgillon]

First short story is now at 100%. In fact today's progress is -200 words as I'm in the editing phase. I've got it down to 3680 words, with my target at 3500. I'd really like to get it down to 3000, but there's no obvious place I can cut 500 words, and cutting that much with sentence rewrites is possibly optimistic.

Second short story now has a file and a title, if not much more. As does third short story, which hit me last night.

All three of these involve the air crash investigator character I've been noodling in the back of my mind for probably the last twenty years, maybe even more. I think first short story is actually the first piece about her I've actually completed, though there is half a novel from 2014-ish that went badly off the rails.

Third short story is most likely to be written next, as it's shaping up as a new way to introduce her. That pre-Christmas drone chaos at Gatwick gave me a new angle on her character that's useful for story creation. I actually already had drones in her background, I just hadn't thought about their intersection with her day job.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Whooooooo!

[yhlee]

Huzzah writing!

I'm curious--is there a particular reason the story needs to be 3,000 words?

[davidgillon]

I know I can usually trim my word count down quite a bit, and 3500 should definitely be doable. So I guess 3000 is the extra credit target :) And I figure the shorter the better if you're an unknown writer.

Plus the detailed editing practise is good for me.

It's a contemporary detective story, so I have absolutely no clue about markets, or preferred lengths,or even if they currently exist. They aren't an area I've been keeping track of.

[hamletta]

Sounds super interesting!