Moving On

So, after a week's break it's time to move on. I've had a lot of ideas for the next novel jostling for attention in my mind. Should it be realist so that, you know, it gets taken seriously by all those agents and publishers who get sniffy and say "no fantasy" (whereas of course, as we know, all fiction is fantasy, as is a great deal of non-fiction come to that). Should it be a genre-bending magic realist piece? Or what?

The current favourite is an SF novel, drawing together various ideas I've had for short stories over the years. The working title is Godstar. Has anyone used that already? I'll mull it over further but I think it's most likely the next one. And, in the meantime, I've got A, T, C and G to work on. And, my mind being what it is, what I've actually started writing is none of the above but another fantasy/realist crossover short story codenamed The One Thousand, One Hundred and Eleven Keys to Fairyland.

Had a couple of rejections whilst I was away. Firstly, The Wind Singing in the Wires got bounced by Ideomancer, making it five strikes in a row from them now. Can you have five strikes in a row? Hey ho. It was, as ever, a polite and useful rejection, saying :

This story was well-written, but I thought perhaps it didn't have enough plot.

Which is, quite possibly, fair enough. Once the wounds have healed I'll rework it and resubmit. I also got a form rejection from The Pedestal Magazine for Sunken Bells. Now there's a story that really doesn't have much plot! But I do like it. It's one of those minimalist, lots-unspoken-going-on kind of things. As ever, it's a matter of finding the right home for each work ...

Meanwhile I had another comment for Hedge Witch on Authonomy :

Good intriguing start. Instantly caught my attention and the world is nicely realised. Very good.

Which was more encouraging. I realised that the copy of the novel on Authonomy was way out of date so I then spent a tedious half and hour updating it when I should have been writing ...