"The butcher's shop was still clean and empty when she got there in the morning. The young priest called to her from the back room where he was dressing for work."

I was fussing with this story in my head last night, so I have to dig it out and look at a little now. I like this one, just like I like my pillar saints story (shame on the podling for not having seen Uncorked yet, btw. More shame on Hannah and mek for not having seen Amelie yet) But like Hoc Vale, I have no plot. Less of one even here than in Hoc, but that one's also stalled. I think I have to pull them off the back burner in my mind now, and start thinking more actively, see if I can't get something going with them before Firing comes back and I have no death stories out there. :) Well, Listening's out, but that's got even fewer markets left.

Tags: firing, hoc vale, libations, listening, roma

So, today, instead of writing, I discussed openings. First, you learn it as a hook. JJA talks about it that way. "didn't Grab me." And that's a fine way to learn it. But eventually you have to get more subtle than that. And I was thinking about it recently, and decided it's more of a seducing. A strip tease, even. Hooks are all 'off with the clothes, into the bed.' Which can work, if you continue at that speed. But the problem is too many stories start like that, and then switch to like, half speed. Sudden bursts of modesty don't work. If the story's got a more sedate speed, as most do, it's more of a strip tease. And this can still fail. Because while you're telling the story, you've still got to be working those buttons.

For me, it works out to something *else* we were talking about, what we decided to call inpositioning. It's the opposite of exposition. My openings are all artful dropping of story details. Very carefully placed, for very specific reasons. Let me look for an example to show what I'm saying.

( Listening )

See? I don't know if that's the best example--it's a little too blatant, I think, but it's the use of the little details. they all work on their own there, but ideally you have to wonder if there's a reason they're all together--wooden floor, silk and brass rug, the shoes he's got nearby vs her barefeet, the spirits she can hear but he can't.

Make sense?

There's another big problem. Betraying the reader's trust. This, I think, is where the hatred of such things as dreams and flashbacks comes from. This is why I hate the stories that start and describe--in detail--every article in the whole damn room and then say, "but sarah was blind, so she saw none of this." Because as a reader, you trust that the author is telling you the truth. And then *boom* it's all a lie. This isn't something that no one can do. But it's something that it's *way* too easy to do badly, as many many slush piles can attest to. I can almost figure out how to do the whole room thing and have it work. But I know I have the chops to do it, and that people would trust the skill in it to not let them down when it turned out to be false. And now I want to use that as my opening for Blinding. It's pretty close as it is.

( Blinding )

I'm being urged to go back to the 'January was blinded" opening, but I'm not sure now. I think the reason I've been resisting it is that I knew it was a hook, not a seduction. Who cares that these people are going blind? The only thing I had going for me was that they are all named for months, which confused people and made them keep reading.

You know, it would help if I stopped having epiphanies about things that I've always known how to do, even if I didn't know why.

It would also be nice if these came around at, say, 2 in the afternoon, instead of 2 at night. :)

Tags: blinding, listening
Current Music: Rufus Wainwright - The Tower of Learning

80 words tonight. Of revision, so it's probably really at least twice that, and about an hour's worth of work. First 4 pages of Requiem (known to Clarionites as either Nightlight or Laying Ghosts.) Slower than sludge, but hey, it's something. And I've had nothing for so long, anything is good.

I cleaned up Listening for submission last week, and Feeling Driftwood the week before, but both of them were just polishing runs. I haven't revised something seriously since early March when I worked on Firing, and before that, the last time was the end of January when I got three pieces out the door in a week. I haven't finished a story since Wounds, and I've barely written any since then as well.

That's what's so frustrating about my problems with Requiem. I *know* what happens. I fixed the ending in my head, so I know what happens where and all, I just need to buckle down and find the words for it. And I can't. I end up staring at the story and drooling. (well, not literally.)

I think maybe I know why everything sucks so much. And it's not SH's rejection of the Firing rewrite, even though that wasn't nice. What hurts is a form from Alchemy for it. I really love this story. And I know that doesn't translate to much of anything, really, but I really love it. And I've only had one other form rejection for it so far (and only two more pro markets for it, I think), so I don't like that. I think I deserved a personal note, even if it was "didn't get it." I know it's my entitlement gnome. I *know* this. (or gnow this). But it still makes me cranky.

I'd like to query ROF about Church of Chain and Roses. I didn't much care how long they were holding on to it before, but now that I have Firing back, I have a story to send them, and I want CCR to come back. I was going to query, but I was being neurotic about who to query (Carina? but she doesn't have it, she passed it up to shawna, and I know this, and she knows I know this, so is it coy to ask her, or should I still ask her?), and while I was being neurotic, someone who subbed well after me (early Jan, I think, instead of late October) got a rejection letter. So maybe she's holding onto mine for a reason? or maybe not, but I think I'll give it a week or so before I query.

Tags: church, driftwood, firing, listening

Whee! Second story finished in 3 days. This one was just about 1000 words of writing, but it was a short one--just 1700 words total. And it's the closest to horror *I've* ever written, though it's really far from horror to everyone else, probably. Maybe dark fantasy. I call it my Mek story. :) I don't know if it works at all, cause it's sort of cliched feeling to me, and I think the world building may be too complex for 1700 words. We'll have to see what I think in the morning.

Tags: listening