My Literary Scrapyard

This week I had the unexpected thrill of finding an old story that was far stronger than I'd originally given it credit for. I gave the tale a couple of minor tweaks and have actually sent it out to an interested editor. We'll see how it fares.

This little exercise led me to ponder how stories often shed their skins, again and again, until their essence is finally conveyed in the best possible narrative. That stories going through two or two-hundred drafts before they finally reach the reading public is pretty common knowledge, but for me that process of refinement stretches far beyond one story. It applies to a large body of my unfinished, fledgling writings.

My writing room is a veritable scrapyard of my fiction. Hard-drives and towers of old paper hold scenes, notes, title lists, half-realized tales, and (in the case of the above story) fully completed works. Once in a while I will go rummaging through these word fields. Often I'll pluck a random page, cringe with embarrassment at what I discover written there, and then mercifully return said work to its resting place (if it's REALLY awful, I may throw it out completely). But there are occasions when I spot the embryo of what later became a wholly different and far better story. I've discovered great phrases or titles that I've cannibalized for a piece I was working on at the time. Many of my stories that seem fluid are in fact patchwork creatures; Frankenstein's monsters wrought from bits of many other works.

This is different from the practice of sending out "trunk stories", whereby an author simply digs into the trunk and sending out a story to an editor, a story that may have suffered multiple rejections or is simply lacking. Sometimes these stories are in the trunk with good reason, but some are genuine diamonds in the rough. It takes work to refine them, but those stories are usually evidence of a period when a writer's imagination was a few paces ahead of their skills at that time. Going back and facing that story objectively, you not only see how poorly you said something, you will also understand what it was that you were attempting to say.

Right now I'm chipping away at a tale that I've been working on, in various incarnations, for nearly a decade. These past attempts won't simply be re-written, for they were merely the cocoon from which the true story is struggling to emerge. When I look back at these first attempts (which have taken the form of two novels, several comic scripts, and a dozen or so short and long stories) I can see where they fell short and why. I know a little more about what this story is about and how I might be able to tell it.

This most recent attempt may wind up being tossed into the scrapyard, but that's fine with me. I'll no doubt get what I need from it in one of my future scavenger hunts.

Springtime in the Woods

It's official:

I am happy to report that Monica S. Kuebler, Editor-in-Chief of Burning Effigy Press, has confirmed that my novelette "Primeval Wood" will be among B.E.'s Spring 2009 line of horror chapbooks. You might recall that the manuscript was accepted back in the fall, but at that time their 2009 publishing schedule was still being ironed out. Now Burning Effigy is rolling forward full-steam and my novelette will be among their first releases of the year. The B.E. website will also have this announcement posted in the coming days.

Keep your eyes on Fear's Altar for updates in the coming weeks. Monica and I will be giving the manuscript a couple more passes before locking in the final draft. Cover art is in the works as well and will be posted here in due course. I can also promise plenty of public showboating as I flog "Primeval Wood" through official launch parties, readings, and other good things.

I'm very much looking forward to unleashing this tale upon the world. In many ways it is a marked departure from my previous work. I would describe this one as earthy. It's modern and strange and, I think/hope will chill you to the marrow.

And while we're on the subject of Burning Effigy's excellent line of horror chapbooks, I'd like to give a shout out to my friend Ian Rogers, whose novelette "Temporary Monsters" has been confirmed as one of B.E.'s Autumn 2009 chapbooks. Nicely done, Ian! I'm looking forward to prowling the Toronto-area literary events with you.

Lastly, for those who did not receive one of the postcards at any of the HWA dinners or recent booksignings I've done, what follows is a bit of teaser as to what you can expect from "Primeval Wood":

‘When Neil Kessler noticed the pale set of eyes staring out at him from the shaded tangles of hawthorn, he experienced what he believed to be a wholly new form of elation, one that crackled and thrummed well beyond the accepted human spectrum.

He soon realized that what blinked at him were not eyes at all, but tiny white blossoms; flowers that nonetheless seemed to glare out from some ecstatic mask.

Neil exhaled a blend of laughter and a sigh. Nature would never allow a thicket to sprout the perfectly-formed fetish of some leering daemonic child.

Yet that was what Neil was seeing, truly seeing…’