What to Do - For Me and For You

There's a new story episode posted on The Legion of On-Line Super Heroes. It's a Writtenwyrdd story, so you know it's good.

My current Hero Series, Hidden Embers, is now finished and the final two episodes will post next week and the week after.

I interrupted my work on The Animal Kingdom with work on our garage sale. Haven't done my query for Swords of Fire: Traitor, either. Don't look forward to being rejected again. That's the real difference between me and published authors. They kept sending in queries to new agents and editors while I sit fearfully doing nothing.

Had a thought about going back to Swords of Fire: Prophecies of Madatar. It's a finished story. Just needs to be edited. It's also 190,000-words long. Part of me resents being told a story is too long. How can it be too long? It's as long as it is for crying out loud. I learned that lesson all over again when I wrote Quest. Quest is the sequel to Apprentice.

Apprentice is just over 6,900-words. When I wrote Quest I was focused on not letting the story be longer than it's predecessor. The result was a bit uninspired, and there were multiple problems throughout. After receiving Fairyhedgehog's critique I returned to it and basically rewrote it, not caring about word length. I wound up with a very nice story at just over 7,800-words. The story needed to be longer because it had more to tell.

We have a rule on the The Legion of On-Line Super Heroes about episode length. Episodes should be in the 500-word range. However, most of the episodes exceed that. I know the one post is over 600-words. It has been my feeling, and now others are beginning to comment, too, that 500-words is merely an appetizer. Perhaps we should have allowed up to 1,000-words. But then some would think their 400-word story wasn't "good enough". It is. I have no doubt about that. So we'll leave the 500-word limit, but just not enforce it strictly. Kind of like speed limits. Whatever works well within traffic constraints. Just keep your vehicle (story) under control.

Not all of the posts make 500-words, though. We have at least two in which the posts are less than 400-words - and still very interesting and well-written. I guess we need to think of our "rules" more as "guidelines".

If you like to write stories, particularly fun stories, I strongly encourage you to check out the The Legion of On-Line Super Heroes and write something for submission. Don't let the quality of Writtenwyrddd and the others intimidate you. It's all about having fun with a story. I post.

Meanwhile, I have several writing projects of my own to choose from. I've got The Animal Kingdom to finish, Prophecies of Madatar to edit, the Traitor query to write, and there are other Hero Stories waiting to be told. What to do, what to do, what to do?

Finish getting the garage sale set up. That's what's to do.