100 things # 58 The hatchet

Sometimes you just need to take a hatchet to your work. I find this particularly hard to do. Oh, you'll find the do-nothing passages that are easy to cut but it's hard to mutilate your baby. Right now I was riding high.I finished my Steampunk short story that I thought I wouldn't get done in time. I was out right positive but then I did it.

I was so proud of myself. I got it done. Yay. It's 1,500 words over the limit. Insert curse word of your choice. Now I could just send it and hope they find it 'extraordinary.' I lack the confidence, mostly because it's a mystery and I don't know why I keep trying to write short mysteries. It rarely works out well for me.

Out comes the hatchet. I need to knock at least 1000 out. (I can live with being a few hundred over). With the help of my beta readers, I hope to make it much more manageable. I'm sending this in one way or the other. I'll roll the dice with whatever I end up with after I slice and dice.

That said, I'll keep a longer version handy. If it's rejected, hey it's only 2-4K away from being a novella, depending on which publisher I look at it. I will go that route, not a problem.

That still doesn't mean a hatchet isn't needed one way or the other. Goes to sharpen my blade.