May 2008 UPDATE: How amazing to realize that writing every day can take me on an unexpected journey. That short story has become a draft now of about 60,000 words, shaped by dreams, research, and simply writing nearly every day. I still hope to finish the first draft of "Standing Stones" by December and no longer care about the length as much as I do the quality of the story itself. The story is clear to me, yet scene after scene still unfolds. I'm also writing poetry now, perhaps not every day, but participating in National Poet Writing Month (April) and Napowrimo has opened up this new expression and connected me with several online writing communties. See http://bethandwriting.blogspot.com for my poetry blog.
Feb 2008 UPDATE: "The Selkie's Wife" slid sideways into a novel called "Standing Stones," set on the Orkney Islands in 1840. My characters are taking me to colonial India, the Pacific Northwest and the Hudson Bay Company, and those radical changes in Edinburg and Glasgow as people fled Ireland's potato famine and crammed into tenements in Scotland during the Industrial Revolution (and the clearances). I've now got about 50,000 words and am averaging between 10,000 and 15,000 words a month, with hopes to finish the first "bad" draft by December, 2008.
Work in progress: Nearly every culture around the world has a story to tell about mermaids. I find these intriguing because so often the mermaid repells as she attracts, and she can challenge conventional views of women. My stories will explore these aspects in contemporary, mythical, and historical settings. Here's a list of the finished stories, with settings ranging from the Oregon coast, Mexico, the Artic, and Russia. I've started submitting these and hope to add links as they're accepted.
- The Mermaid Quilt (pending submission 12/6/07)
- Rusalka (submitted 2/3/08 and accepted)
- The Tower and the Net
- La Sirena
- Sedna's Gift
- The Siren's Song
I'd like to have 10 stories, so these drafts are in varying states of progress: Mermaid Parade, The Selkie's Wife, The Mermaid with the Glass Tail, Under the Mermaid Gate, The Red-Haired Mermaid.
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