Crickets

So yesterday I spent a few minutes on iTunes and found an hour of cricket sounds to serve as white noise in my very quiet, very welcomely quiet, office.  It might be five minutes looping, but it sounds good to me.  ;-)

Work is moving forward at a faster clip than expected, and I should have the Harrison anthology (September 2012) off my desk by the end of the month or shortly thereafter.  The last story is going to give me issues, (Grace) and I want to go over the first again (Trent and Jenks' elf quest) to see if I've made him too soft in my attempts to bring out more elf culture.  He feels soft to me, and that's not what I wanted.  Balance, balance . . .

Today, though, I'll be working with Meg, who, if you remember, is a creepy sort of story that leans toward the fairytale horror that you're seeing on a lot of SiFi shows right now.  This is the one in the bunch that I think my editor was the most excited about, and the one that would play the most havoc with my balance if I developed it into a full novel.  (because of the horror.)  I don't see it as a series, but as a stand-alone.  It has a wonderful voice I've not worked in for a long time.

Stand alones are not popular at all right now, but this one feels powerful enough to make it.  (shrug)  We'll see. If someone wants it, they want it.  If not, I might just write it to get it out of my mind so I can write something else. I feel pretty good with several outstanding ideas with which to play with in the coming years.  (Ah, they aren't outstanding quite yet, but the bones lend themselves to outstanding if the work is put into them.)  It's all very wide open.  As the song says, "You don't get open, You just are open."

Early heads up: We're going to have a Manic Monday on Friday in celebration of The Year of the Dragon.