I’ve written about 3,000 words today attempting to finish up “Graveyard Shift”. About 30% of that was rewriting material to make it fit the outline that I came up with yesterday. That means that I’ve added about 2,000 words and the story stands close to 19,000 words right now. I expect to keep it under 25,000. I’m now into the last third of the story and the sections are a little bit shorter as the pace picks up. I’ve got about 10 more sections to do. I’m not sure I’ll get them all done tonight, but I’m doing my best.
It feels good, the story I mean. In two places today, I found myself really moved by the story. And in a third place, one of the new sections took on a double-meaning that I had not intended but which fits the story perfectly.
Really the only problem at this point is that it’s such a long story. 25,000 words is about 1/4 of a novel. It also happens to be the very upper limit for what most sf magazines accept. The longer the story, the harder it is to get it published because it has to be better than two or three shorter stories that would otherwise occupy the space in the maagzine.
But you know what, I’m not going to let that bother me. I think it’s a good story and I’m having a fun time writing it now. For now, that’s all that matters.
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