STORY ACCEPTANCE.
Oct. 30th, 2014 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
agilebritSo, Writing Excuses did a podcast awhile back on caper stories and what makes them tick. Their writing prompt at the end was "Your characters need to perform a reverse-heist, putting jewels into a safe without getting caught."
Well. I combined that prompt with something in my Plot Bunny Hutch (a dragon that collects something besides treasure: cats), and wrote a story in which a village has to pay tribute to the local dragon by leaving a cat in its cave once a year, and take something out as proof, without getting roasted. Oh, and, it's a competition.
This ended up being a 9000-word behemoth with four POV characters, one of whom is a damned talking cat. This is a ridiculously hard sell, but I love the story and refused to give up on it, especially when it garnered a personal "didn't quite work, nice writing" rejection from F&SF.
So while I was waiting for Tor to get back to me on something they had, I tossed it at Stupefying, because Bruce likes me and likes my stuff, and he got back to me the same day and said "I get hundreds of cute cat and dragon stories, but I like this one, so up to the second reader it goes." And he let me know today that they had apparently wanted it, but hadn't sent out the formal acceptance yet.
I don't know what issue it will be in; they have a publishing backlog right now because Bruce has had some personal challenges, but I have it on good authority that someone may be giving him a hand with it soon.
Everyone! Do the Dance of Joy with me!
Well. I combined that prompt with something in my Plot Bunny Hutch (a dragon that collects something besides treasure: cats), and wrote a story in which a village has to pay tribute to the local dragon by leaving a cat in its cave once a year, and take something out as proof, without getting roasted. Oh, and, it's a competition.
This ended up being a 9000-word behemoth with four POV characters, one of whom is a damned talking cat. This is a ridiculously hard sell, but I love the story and refused to give up on it, especially when it garnered a personal "didn't quite work, nice writing" rejection from F&SF.
So while I was waiting for Tor to get back to me on something they had, I tossed it at Stupefying, because Bruce likes me and likes my stuff, and he got back to me the same day and said "I get hundreds of cute cat and dragon stories, but I like this one, so up to the second reader it goes." And he let me know today that they had apparently wanted it, but hadn't sent out the formal acceptance yet.
I don't know what issue it will be in; they have a publishing backlog right now because Bruce has had some personal challenges, but I have it on good authority that someone may be giving him a hand with it soon.
Everyone! Do the Dance of Joy with me!
