Thought I'd have a new short story up by last night. I wasn't looking forward to all the formatting etc., but formating didn't delay me. Revisions did. All in all, the Half-Elven are taking entirely too much of my time. Mostly because I don't know what I'm doing.
I put myself between a rock and a hard spot. I need to promote and have a website since I have an e-publication coming out in 2011. I need new material to keep my website interesting. Since I'm not a sales machine, I decided on the free short story bit to create new content. Only problem. I'm lousy at writing short stories. My ideas always have a long back story ... plus a forward story about what happens afterwards. I think my anthropological background has doomed me to getting mired down in context.
So, I'm trying to give my stories a context. I started out thinking that I'd do a few short "Renna's Tales" based on an old lady gossiping. ... Only the background events and people are complex ... and get more complex as my main Half-Elven characters live out their 400+ year lives. My solution? Renna's Tale is now the story of the days immediately after the Rebellion created the Marches, and the Half-Elven fought among themselves over who would rule.
Now, all I have to do is revise ... revise ..., and probably revise again. Ugh. Maybe next week?
An illustration note. Mr. Glushkin is in the process of creating the last illustration for the site ... in between taking care of a new baby. Would you believe babies take a lot of work?
To Return to the Half-Elven Website, click picture. -- (Artwork: Igor Glushkin)
Maybe you could try doing a free serial instead. If you're having issues with keeping your stories contained in the short story format, you could post short installments of longer stories instead.
ReplyDeleteIt worked for Charles Dickens!