I just fin­ished round one of edits for Posi­tion Secured, my short sto­ry at Samhain Pub­lish­ing. It was fair­ly pain­less, but what do you expect from a short? I made a Â few sil­ly errors, so I’m glad that my edi­tor Lin­da caught them before I embar­rassed myself.  Also, I found out that Aman­da Kelsey does cov­er work for Samhain, and I did a lit­tle hap­py dance. I’ll be request­ing her hand­i­work on Posi­tion Secured, so cross your fin­gers that they’ll let me have her.

In oth­er news, I’m about half-way through anoth­er short sto­ry, still unti­tled. Short sto­ries are eas­i­er in some ways — if I con­cen­trate, I could have one done in a few days — but it’s extreme­ly hard to make a sen­si­ble plot and devel­oped char­ac­ters in 20k words. Some­one once told me that a short sto­ry is just one long scene. I think that’s a pret­ty good way to look at it. I might throw a few flash­backs in there, or two semi-long scenes instead of one…who knows. This is new to me. I’ll nev­er stop writ­ing longer nov­els though; I real­ly like get­ting into these char­ac­ter’s heads. As a read­er I like to feel along with the hero­ine. Heartache, loss, love, fear…whatever she’s got going on. I like per­son­al involve­ment. The trick is to write sto­ries that do the same for my readers.

Okay, I’d bet­ter get back to work. 2009 was great for me, I hope 2010 is even bet­ter. Hap­py New Year everyone!