Unproductive Days

Not much accomplished today. It was just too hot to work on the computer in this house without any form of air-conditioning. I fixed the taps in the bathroom, because it was cooler in there, on the tiles, than it was anywhere else.

I have started working on revisions for 'Daivadana'. The crits I received were pretty unanimous in the areas where the story and/or character motives were a little ambiguous. I can already see how I can tighten this up and make motives more plain. I'm also going to lose an entire character. Pretty much just rip him out of the story. That will get rid of around 1500 words, and I can cut another 1,000-2,000 just by losing a lot of my (usual) extraneous descriptions. That should bring the story back down to 10,000 or under, as well as giving the plot and the motives of the two main characters more coherence.

I've also started work on a story tentatively titled 'The Message', which is intended to be a submission for Eneit Press's upcoming anthology 'Voices'. All of the stories are to take place in a hotel room, which, to me, is an intriguing concept. The "Hotel Room as Horror" setting has quite a long lineage - Stephen King's '1408' springs to mind as a recent example - and I've enjoyed the mental challenge of thinking up a suitably scary story that can really only use a single room as its setting. I've only just started and, for a change, I pretty much know the beginning, middle and end of this story. Because I have the story already mapped out in my head I don't think it will be anywhere near as long as some of my previous efforts (Calliope = 10,200 words, All the Clown in Clowntown = 11,000 words, Diavadana = 13,000 word). I won't have to dally so much trying to find the story within the characters and setting, which is what I usually have to do. Hopefully it will come in at around 4-5,000 words at the most.

Oh, and if you read "Calliope: A Steam Romance" (in Shadow Plays anthology) and enjoyed it, and have a spare line on your Ditmar nomination forms, it is eligible this year. As is my cover artwork for Aurealis #37. Whether you find either of my contributions worthy or not, don't forget to get your nominations in soon! The deadline is 8th February, and the Ditmars (being a 'popular vote' award) rely on nominations from the Australian Spec-Fic community. Without nominations, some works might miss out on being shortlisted at all.