Progress Report

After rejection number 16 (a new record for me), I decided to take another look at "Paradise Burned." Obviously, with numbers like that, you can assume that the story is important enough to me that I think it needs to be out in the world. I didn't change much, but I tweaked the language here and there, added some scripture and some Shakespeare quotes, as one does, and now I think it's even better! Hopefully the next magazine agrees. I polished some more Star Treasure , bringing me exactly 50 pages away from completion. Woot! I might do another chapter or two tomorrow to bring forward that finish date. After that, I need to take another look at my pitch and synopsis to make sure they are as perfect as possible. Big Smoke Pulp. Yes, it is released. No, the physical copies are not. Lucy and that damned football....I'm told in 48 hours (Monday) it will be sent to the printer. When will it arrive? I'm sure that will be a surprise as well. One step closer to reality...

 The end is nigh! I got to 368 of 447 in my Star Treasure edit. I'm still wondering if the story would be stronger if I didn't treat it like three interconnected mini-novels and just start hacking and chopping to make it a lot leaner single novel. It's what I did for Punch the Devil and I think it turned out well, but PTD was bloated, while Star Treasure's length feels much more organic. A thought for another polish... Big Smoke Pulp, Vol 2 , once again is not yet released. I was expecting it to be on my doorstep last month, as per the editor. Anxiety. It will happen, I'm sure, but right now I'm a little frustrated with the process. I miscalculated on the short story response times. I guess my post last weekend had been fueled by optimism! A more realistic timeline seems to be early May or June.

  My first publication is almost available! I received an email on Thursday telling me Kickstarter surveys would close on Monday and after that the digital copies would become available. Shortly after that, physical copies would be on their way! So cool to have one of those on my shelf. If you haven't bought one yet, I'm guessing Vol. 2 will be available digitally on Amazon at some point this year, just like Vol. 1. I've chiseled away at Star Treasure again today. I currently stand at 343 of 447 for the second polish of my second novel. About 100 pages left, thank Jebus. I tell you one thing: I never want to do back-to-back book polishes again. It feels more like repairing than it does creating. I just read a How-To Write book in which the author claimed to prefer editing to the actual writing of the piece. It's possible he suffers from some form of brain disease. Writing my latest short story was much more satisfying, but now it sits and waits for its own polish. At l...

Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Clint Hall, and I fancy myself a writer. I've been writing short fiction (usually sci-fi, but sometimes I branch out) for as long as I can recall and recently got a story published. I usually add a 'blog' to my website every weekend to let friends and family know what happened in my writing adventures. Now, I will do so here. I'm currently polishing my second novel, which is just as unpublished as the first. Thus far. https://sites.google.com/view/hallwaywriting/ And so begins my first post... Distracted, again! I went down a rabbit hole last night trying to figure ways to increase my website's visibility and read that outside links, such as Blogger, can increase where a website lands in a search (I would like to take a moment to say Bing has Hallway Writing at the top of their search, while Google--my host--doesn't have me listed. For shame). Being on Blogger also gives me the opportunity to interact with people who visi...

  03/04/26 (From ‘Upcoming’) I took a break from the Star Treasure edit today to hammer out a new short story. I wrote a page of the story a couple weekends ago and last weekend came up with some character names and plot points. It brewed to a certain extent that I realized it was ready to serve. Once I start seeing scenes of the story play out in my head, it is time to put it on paper. It felt really nice to create again, instead of just fiddling with something that's already 'finished.' I think the new story turned out pretty good, but it's hard to say since my brain has turned to mush. Writing 3,000 words in a sitting will do that to me. By the way, I think that might be a record for me. Seeing as it is a long weekend, I expect to be back at the novel tomorrow. As for the "Power of Chikara" edit ... it needs to stew a little first.

  28/03/26 (From ‘Upcoming’) I got to 309 of 444 on the Star Treasure edit. The page numbers are going up, but the word count is going down; the reason for this is that I'm inserting page-breaks between chapters. I'm well into Book 3 and wondering if I should try to sell them individually, or do what I did with Punch the Devil and trim some fat. I'm sure I could bring it down, but the story follows one POV character, meaning they are much more tightly interlocked than the 3 POV of PTD . I sent out two new submissions. On April 1st, there will be a few more magazines opening for submissions, which will see some of my sim subs. One magazine is open for a day, the other for a week, so I must move quickly. 21/03/26 (From ‘Upcoming’) I made it to 289 of 442 on the Star Treasure edit--that gets me to the two-thirds mark! Some quick math tells me, at 20 pages of edits per weekend, I will have it licked in 7-8 more weeks. I might try to squeeze in some more edits on Sunda...