Writerly Progress Report

So, what's new on the writing front? Well, I was supposed to get a few English short stories done over the holidays, but spent them recuperating on the couch instead. I did find the energy to submit a few older pieces and sent a story to the Writers of the Future contest, gathered a bunch of rejections for a flash piece, and got an acceptance for a short story I submitted to an anthology called Mrs Rochester's Attic, yay! And I am feeling a bit better, so hopefully I can get the revisions I was planning to do over the holidays done in the next few weeks, maybe even finish the short story I've been wanting to write. 

Lying on the couch wasn't all bad: I did figure out how to fix the opening of a story that's been sitting in my virtual drawer for six months. The trouble is that I actually pretty much love the opening as it is, but it just doesn't fit the story (the tone is wrong and there's too much flash and humour and action considering what comes next), but now I have an idea on how to tone it down without losing the strong character voice that prompted me to write the story in the first place. 

For the last few weeks I've been busy with edits for the Finnish Gothic anthology piece. I really enjoyed working with the editors and I feel the story is much stronger now that I've finished. We'll see if there will be another round of edits, or maybe just some minor tweaks. Either way, it's been a great learning experience. I also got the edits for the Nova competition piece. There will apparently be an anthology at some point, but the edits don't need to be done for months so that's on the back burner for now. Last weekend I scrambled to finish a story for my Finnish critique group and managed to get it done the night before the deadline, so I'm pretty happy with that. 

I also wrote the article for the English edition of the Cosmos Pen magazine I talked about earlier and found out some of my drabbles got accepted for publication in the mag also. If you're going to Worldcon, they'll be handing out copies of the magazine there, so do check it out if you're interested. My article is a travel guide type thing called "Weird Finland: A Guide to Peculiar Places." (Working title, haven't got the edits back for that one yet.) I'm not sure if the magazine will be available electronically also, but I'll link to it if it is. 

That's pretty much it for now. Hopefully I'll get a few stories in English done soon. I haven't submitted anything to Critters in ages...