Monday, May 4, 2009

Bending the Rules

All---

I think I'm close to pulling the trigger on submitting, "Petty Theft." I need to do a print-out proofread and I need to sleep on it. I like it. I think it maintains the essence of the original story, but I also think it updated nicely. I took a lesson from Cuppa Jolie's Monday Moment of today and to punch of my MC's irritation factor. I personally think it paces out pretty well, but I read the Red Flags post that Casey linked to today, and now I'm a little paranoid.

I've got a darn lot of internals in this story. I think they're action-oriented, plot-moving, not just journaling, but it's going to take me a day or two to stop second-guessing myself. Rose read through it quickly tonight and said it definitely didn't feel slow to her. As long as the reader isn't left saying, "Okay, get on with it, get to the point, Nevets," I'm okay. There are no 100% rules in writing. Unfortunately, there are some 100% rules in getting out of the slough pile.

While I want to be an artist and to respect my creation, I'm nowhere as hung up on those ideas as I was when I was a teenager and started cranking out the fiction. I've been through a masters program. I know all about writing to meet the standards of the people who need to approve. And, yeah, frankly, I want to be published. That's the other thing. I know I want to be published, and while I want to still respect myself in the morning, I've gotta admit that doing what it takes to get my foot in the door is pretty important right now.

Maybe if there's a story that I can't get done within the normal "rules," I'll just put it off for later. Right now, I need to build my platform. Then I'll have something to stand on.

As for, "Petty Theft," I don't think it breaks the rules too badly at all. I just need to accept that and take the plunge with it.

It doesn't help that this one got trounced in its original form by as disparate outfits as Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and same mystery/crime rag out of Australia that no one's even heard of. Ah, baggage. LOL

.Nevets.

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