I have been working on a winter anthology submission that is past deadline already. But work comes first. And my submission is having some issues as well. It's not flowing as easily as other stories have. I have all sorts of things going on, maybe too many things. But each time I work on it I come across and fix another plot/world issue. So there is progress, and it is good progress, but it is slow going. This winter story features magic of a highly unusual nature, even more unusual than usual!
One problem I ran into is that I changed some of the underlying world basics involved in the story, something that I don't like to do, but I had some good ideas that needed a bit of tweaking to be even better.
I feel too another issue I have is I still need to work on showing not saying. One key thing for this story is that one of the characters feels both happy and sad that his mother died. How do I show that and not say it? Here is one piece of the tale that I came up with on that angle:
Far to the southwest, August’s whole body jerked taut at a
sudden, overwhelming ringing noise. He
fell to the floor, twitching, the ancient document in his hands crumbling and tearing
into pieces as his hands clenched with uncontrollable seizures. Tears welled in his eyes and his heart shattered into
a million shards as the ringing sound grew louder and louder before passing
through him and away. As the sound faded, August’s body went limp, his every
muscle exhausted from the strain.
“No,” he whimpered softly, “No no no,” and then a final,
almost unheard, “Yes.”
Another thing I am working on tonight is family dynamics. Between the sisters, between August and his aunts, etc...
Picture for today is of a woman. It has some of the feel for one of the sisters in my story. Now if it only had her changing into a fish that would be perfect!
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