Progress is progress

I had two short story anthologies I was working on this past month.

The first one, I totally blew. I thought I would have an easier time working on it than I did and the whole thing sort of fell apart. That’s okay, I realized it wasn’t working for me early on and moved to the second.

That one took off splendidly. I was drawn in quickly and my MC asserted her voice in that way that lets me know we’ll make it through. That isn’t to say it still wasn’t hard – it was. I think I’m still so rusty, that everything is difficult.

I put in the work though and we’re on the second round of edits. I’m feeling pretty good about it and plan to start shopping around once I’m finished.

It’s good to have something that feels like a complete thought. Even when I’m also certain that it’s terrible. Oh hell, it’s terrible, isn’t it? Crap. Well, I’ll keep working on it.

-R

Pegasus Debt – Wendig challenge

Pegasus Debt

By S Rain Lawrence

(The Chuck Wendig flash fiction challenge)

 

 

Dr. Emma Torrez trimmed the edges of the electrical tape meticulously and closed the access panel with a defeated sigh. It would hold for now. She double checked the hatch door and was relieved to find it was working again.

A soft edged explosion shook the corridor of the space station. Warning claxons blared and the few functioning emergency lights that remained in the corridor flashed red.

A string of curses preceded her colleague, Dr. Jack Hardy as he came barreling towards her.

“What happened now?” Emma asked.

“We asked for insulation!” Hardy screamed. He screeched to a halt in front of her, grabbed her by the shoulders and shouted “INSULATION! What the fuck am I supposed to do with more damn pipe fittings?”

“Yeah, I was there,” Emma sighed. “I’m asking what the explosion was.”

“Hardy! Torrez! What’s going on?”

“Landon! I’m so glad you’re here,” Hardy exclaimed as he clutched at her arm. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Hardy had become increasingly more unhinged over the past few months and Emma was hesitant to take anything he said seriously. His tangle of brown hair was tied back from his face and his beard grew unchecked. Dr. Gina Landon folded her arms across her chest and pursed her lips. Her coveralls were worn and pieces were patched with the same tape that Emma held in her hand.

“Is this an actual emergency?” Landon asked. “I’m trying to finish decommissioning section five before it snaps off the station entirely and kills us all.”

“We have to abandon the station!” Hardy said emphatically, his eyes wide. “NOW!”

“Pretty sure we don’t get paid if don’t finish fixing this place up,” Landon said.

Emma peered down the corridor. Was that smoke?

“Hardy, what happened in the research section?” Emma asked hesitantly.

“I keep telling you! It finally happened! I was rewiring the containment apparatus so it would pressurize properly. But they didn’t send us insulation AGAIN on the last shipment. How many times have we asked for insulation? How many times did we tell them we need properly insulated wiring? But no, the last three shipments we get random shit that isn’t anything like what we asked for!”

“Hardy! Focus!” Landon shouted.

Hardy stopped and blinked vacantly at them.

“Electrical fire,” he said. “Something got into the uninsulated wiring. The whole thing is in flames.”

“Oh shit…” Emma whispered.

“Shit won’t save us now!” Hardy said with a cackle.

Emma glanced down the corridor again as it began to fill with smoke.

“Escape pod! Escape pod!” Landon chanted.

Emma turned and ran, leading the way through the twists of the space station past crumbling debris and half-finished repairs. Only a few more meters. Emma had never been so relieved to see a functioning LED panel. She scanned the readings quickly, making sure the pod was ready to go. She pulled the air lock hatch and opened the door to the escape pod.

The scientists piled into the pod and Emma sealed the hatch closed behind them.

“Do we even know how this thing works, Torrez?” Landon asked over Emma’s shoulder.

“If you give me some space, maybe I can figure it out!”

Emma scrolled through the operation screen inside the pod as it flickered under her shaking fingers. She found the launch sequence and tapped through it as quickly as possible.

The pod burst free of the space station and shot towards the moon base. Emma looked back at the station to see the entirety of the main section crumple with the flames. The pegasus logo next to neatly etched name of the space station melted before her eyes.

“What a fucking joke,” Hardy said.

“What are you talking about?” Landon asked.

“They just stuck us on there for months and expect us to fix the place with no support? The technical debt was an abomination. What were we supposed to do? Patch the holes with our PhDs?”

The pod began to shake and warning klaxons fired.

“Whose job was it to maintain the escape pod?” Emma asked.

Hardy cackled hysterically.

Always room for more

As of today, I have turned in the first round of edits on both stories I have coming out later this year. While it is an absolute relief to have them off my plate (for now) there is still a residual anxiety hovering around. I’ve never been very good at relaxing and it’s quite pronounced today! Once I finished sending off my draft, I very nearly ran out of the Starbucks to get some air!

I’m exceedingly grateful to my writing group friends for tolerating me during the sea of editing crises. Editing my own work is very challenging, even with the assistance of a professional editor. Every time I receive feedback from an editor, I learn something. This time through, the insights were especially helpful. I was even able to apply what I learned from one editor to the change I made on the next piece!

The challenge now is… what to work on next? I’ve done nothing but edit for just over an entire month. I’m itching to do something entirely different, but I hear the call from a mostly finished short story in my documents folder. Only a few changes I could submit it!

I’m also thinking about looking for a few more anthology calls. I’ve found writing for anthologies to be a lot of fun lately!

Of course, what I should do is relax! Maybe just for a few minutes!

Writing is hard, editing is hard

As I’m going through the process of working with an editor, I am reminded that editing blows. As anyone who has ever tried to string together a few coherant sentences can tell you: writing is HARD. Then, to add insult to injury, you must edit your manuscript. It seems rather unfair.

Right now, I’m going through my MS and removing ever time I used the word, “just.” Why in the world did I use that word so much?? What was I thinking? And most embarassingly, how did I not notice it myself before I sent it off to my publisher? I’m tempted to go back to my original draft and find out just how many times it was, but that might be cruel.

It’s tempting to assert that writing is hard, but editing is harder. I don’t believe that to be true. Pulling the words from nothing and putting them on the page is hard. It’s an exercise in dedication and creativity. Taking the words you’ve amassed and shaping them into a more refined whole is hard. It’s an exercise in perserverance and attention to detail. At this point in my life, I’m still working on how to do both of these things effectively.

Hopefully, I’ll find other things to work on as I become more confident in the larger aspects in the process of writing. I will never stop learning. I work hard to make that happen.

In the end it’s like running and biking. (What, doesn’t everyone do those things??) They’re both physically exhausting if you do them long enough but they work different muscles. They’re similar in some ways, but getting back on my bike in the spring after only running all winter is a pretty rude awakening. My thighs mock me with all the miles I ran on that first bike ride. The trick is that I have to do them both.

I’m okay with that.