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My current plan is for August and early September to be time to put these lingering pieces of short fiction out of their misery. Then if I have time before Viable Paradise, I'm going to start figuring out what I need to do to rewrite The Sea thy Mistress--at least the planning stages, and maybe even some of the work. After VP, starting in October... Chill is going down. I really need for that book to be part of my past rather than part of my future, if you know what I mean. It's been part of my future for entirely too long.
The part about putting the short fiction out of its misery is actually going pretty well, currently. I'm on page 73 of the first revision pass of Bone & Jewel Creatures (total length of the novella is currently 99 pages) and it's much, much better than I remembered it being. I still have to figure out how the Thrilling Conclusion! works, and I want to go back over it and put on some more gingerbread, maybe (though maybe it has enough gingerbread; I will need to send it to some people and ask)... but I'm really pretty pleased with it. It's quirky and elegaic and the characters are nicely inhuman, the way you would expect elderly and cosmopolitan Wizards to be.
Hmm. You know, it's possible that I'm better at this writing thing than I think I am.
Okay, food now and then back to the coal mines before climbing.