2 posts tagged “horror”
I finished the first draft of a story for the Apex anthology Mari invited me to write for. I grabbed a copy of the latest Apex from my local B&N and haven't read it yet. I need to know if I'm going to have to shoehorn some SF into this story. I think that, up to a point, horror writing is fantasy writing. Sure not if the horror is something grounded and real but once you start throwing in supernatural creatures, otherwordly occurrences, etc. you have fantasy elements.
Now I don't know how you move from horror to SF, the marriage of which is the backbone of Apex. Thing is, the story has to be (1) set in rural Kentucky and (2) horror. That's great. I can handle that. But how do I get SF in there? I think what I have is going to have to be SF enough (which is zero).
I'm going to rearrange some things and I think I need to expand some of the end. Then I have to go back and cut it. First draft is pushing 8k and Mari said they want it around 5k. No worries. I cut "Jacqueleine" from 10k to 5k.
It was weird writing something that has such an unbelievable key element (the horor/supernatural part). I tried to base it in reality and I mixed it with a little mystery so I think that, with a built-in audience already suspending disbelief b/c of the nature of the stories, I won't need to explain or justify the unusual elements. I admit that horror is not my thing but I write a great deal about horribleness and the real-world horrible things that people do. Plus if you write well and tell a good story, your goal is met. I think once I get this cleaned up and polished, I'll have met that goal.
I also got a rejection on my Cole story but it was a "not this but send us more of your stuff" rejection, which is good. So I submitted the Cole story to a print journal. And my query for RFM is still out there (still never heard from Dude #1).
Next thing to do is to write the May AB article (it's about writing communities; I've been joining a bunch so I can spy). Then I might either do a quick run-through of RFM or start working on Nine again. The Apex-antho story isn't due until about next March. What can I say? I like to have a nice cushion before a deadline,
A writing friend of mine is an editor at an online journal. She announced their annual Halloween contest and, of course, I'm a sucker for Halloween. I asked on the TC boards if it had to be Halloween-specific and it doesn't. It does have a theme: "post-Apocalypse."
Years ago I had a post-Apocalyptic dream that was so real and so long, I thought I was living it. When I woke up, I wrote a lot of it down. So I used that scenario for my version of the Apocalypse and went from there. It's also horror and the word limit is 2500. Hard to achieve horror in 2500 words but I think I made it a bit scary.
I won't say the name of the story in case my friend, who's a judge, reads here. Thats also why I'm not saying anything specific about it.
Hawk read it and his reaction to "did you like it?" was "Um yeah." Whatever. He also said there were some typos. Fine. He's been a real help as a reader lately.
Anyway, I have a little time to clean it up. A couple people might look at it and then I'll submit it. I haven't sent anything to a contest in ages so this is a step back toward writing for publication again. Yay me!
I haven't decided if I'm trying NaNo or not. I know I could do it, as I proved by finishing RFM as I did. I have zero ideas for any stories (I was lucky that the Apex contest had a specific theme & genre to focus me). Maybe I'll try an erotic novel, like last year. I didn't do too badly in NaNo 2006. I just got bored & overwhelmed by life & stuff.
I had a form rejection while we were on vacation but the agent I sent sample chapters to hasn't contacted me and the Dream Agency still has my complete ms. The form rejection -- meh. I haven't sent any new queries b/c I want yes/no answers on the few I already did first.
